EXPEBIENCES OF MR. STALE. 
likely to have taken place then. When she saw 
master was coining, instead of continuing to pound 
rice, she would have run into the lines, and shut 
the door, or if surprised and accosted, she would 
never have answered him, or most certainly not 
have entered into a conversation. It is a generally re- 
cognized idea that Asiatic morality is on a very low scale, 
as compared with European, but we must take into con- 
sideration the very different state of society or social, life 
in the two hemispheres. The inner or secret life of the 
coolie is no secret; he does not and cannot retire under 
the cloak of respectable outward demeanour; all that he 
does in private life, is very well known, and talked abouto. 
Then, consider their utter ignorance, and want of all eduea,- 
tion whatever, in many cases, somewhat similar to a docile 
speaking animal, although we hear, the docile anitnab is, 
now very much changed from the times of which we write, 
and if you now venture to lay any burden on his back iu 
excess of what he has made up his mind to carry, he will 
kick up his heels, get rid of his burden, and yourself at 
the same time by running off ’’f Then, recollect, how gangs 
of men and women were made to occupy the same set of 
huildings—of course, in separate rooms«-bnt we all know 
these rooms possessed no privacy; one had only to pop 
out of one door, and into the other; every word spoken in 
an adjacent room was heard in the next, indeed in the 
olden times it used to be very frequently the ease that 
the partition walls between the rooms did not exceed four 
feet in height. But, partition walls indeed ! They often 
only consisted of a few sticks, with mats, or old bags, full 
of holes and rents, hung over them, hut whatever the 
partition walls were made of, there was nothing to hinder 
any man, woman, or child, with the greatest ease, to clam- 
ber over them, look through the crevices, or carry on any 
amount of conversation with their neighbours, in the next 
room, and they had only to lift up the bag walls, like a 
piece of tapestry, in order to pass from one room into 
another. Many a raid have we made upop ‘‘the lines,” 
when in want of bags, and didn’t we somewhat interfere 
with and mar their domestic arrangements and privacy! 
But these days have long since passed away, and the^ 
domestic comforts of the coolie are now better studied and 
carried into practice. Now, as a rule, all that the European 
labourer does, in private life, is not known and talked 
about. They are not subject to this very primitive grega-. 
lions sort of life j they have their social privacy and domestic 
arrangements, apart altogether from curious eyes, and ears. 
There can be no manner of doubt whatever, that were 
European working classes, man and woman, packed pro-, 
miscuously, or rather to please themselves as they liked, 
in buildings somewhat similar to those occupied in the 
olden times by coolies, they would show as low or a lower 
grade of morality, than the coolies did, or do We have 
all heard and read of the evils which resulted in Scotland 
some time ago, from what was called, the “ bothie” sys- 
tem amongst agricultural labourers ; and it these evils re-„ 
suited on such, n sms,il scale, what would they have bee®, 
