168 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[December 12. 
attended to during the present month that have proved 
a real treasure in early spring after a severe winter, 
when, to a great extent, the early plantings have been 
destroyed; and we are always careful ourselves to put a 
quantity in such places, which are certain ol proving 
acceptable in due season. James Barnes. 
MISCELLANEOUS INFORMATION. 
OUR VILLAGERS. 
By the Authoress of “ My Flowers," Ac. 
There are two things more especially the bane of the 
peasantry, more especially the ruin of health, morals and 
domestic comfort in this our favoured land, and these two 
things are, beer and tobacco. Short-sighted was the policy 
and evil the hour that established the system of beer¬ 
houses throughout the country; for a more demoralizing, 
pernicious, dangerous scheme could not have been devised 
to augment the revenue. Public-houses were evils certainly, 
in some respects, but then they were only to be found in 
villages; and places of public refreshment, if conducted with 
strict propriety, are necessary and useful. But beer-houses 
taint the air. At every turn, in every lane, and road, and 
byepath, the poor labourer is tempted to spend his children’s 
money in these unholy precincts; he cannot return from his 
work without passing the door whence issue fumes of 
tobacco, and noisy voices, and unseemly language; and to 
those whose hearts are strangers to the love and fear of God, 
how attractive are such scenes! If we believe that “right¬ 
eousness exalteth a nation,” how can we expect to prosper 
as a people, if our national measures promote sin ? It used 
to be brought as a reproach against the poor Irish, that 
starving as they professed to be, they could always find 
money for “ the rint ” exacted by their arbitrary leader. Now 
a far heavier siu lies at the door of the English peasantry, 
for however wretched and starving may be the wife and 
children, yet the man who loves beer will always find money 
to procure that wicked and ruinous indulgence. Tobacco, 
too, where can be the pleasure and profit of smoking ? It 
is a sort of intoxication in itself, and leads to drinking. 
How many pence are spent in it that would give a meal of 
bread or rice to a child; and how much disease and misery 
of mind will that man escape who resolutely resists his 
passion for tobacco and beer! If for one month only', or 
even one week, the father would put by every halfpenny he. 
is accustomed to drink and smoke, he would be surprised at 
the useful little sum that would he found in the corner of 
the cupboard when the stated time was over. 
It is astonishing to observe the difference in the look 
between the sober man and the drinker. There is always 
a cheerful, clean, open air about the former, and a heavy, 
sodden, dirty, ashamed face in the latter character. Vice 
always marks the man, however he may try to conceal it; 
and it marks his family too; for it is impossible for his wife 
and children to look well clothed or happy when he drinks 
half his wages, and comes home cross, and violent, if not in 
a state of positive intoxication. 
A man is made miserable by drinking, and then he 
drinks again to forget his misery! How sin entraps us! 
How “the roaring lion” decoys us into perdition! I am 
sure that nine men out of ten would flee as from a serpent, 
if they only knew that when tempted to enter a beer-house 
Satan has hold of their hand, and, in all his hideous 
deformity, is dragging them on. One cry to Him who holds 
the lion’s chain,—one moment’s sharp resistance, and he 
would speedily flee from them. 
We were speaking to a basket-maker, some days ago, who 
for many years kept a little public-house in the adjoining 
parish, and we were greatly pleased to find that he had given 
it up, and settled himself in a cottage, attending only to his 
trade. He told us he had begun to suspect that he was not 
in the right way, that “no good” came of selling beer, and 
encouraging men to drink and smoke, and break the Sab¬ 
bath, and that neither his own health nor happiness were 
the better for residing at “ The Swan." He left it, and both 
his “ Missus ” and himself found themselves better and 
happier than they had ever been before. He had not been, 
in any way, a drinker, hut he had taken more than he 
needed; and now that he lias given up all, his appearance 
has changed too : he is better clothed, happier-looking, and 
in regular work. 
I have no doubt that his experience is that of every one 
who takes the same wise step. No one can possibly look 
more wretched than Charles S- the mason, who comes 
to his work with a pale, swelled face, and a languid step. 
We have sometimes met him returning from the public- 
house in dirty working clothes, even when the sweet church 
bells were chiming; and his wife looks the picture of woe, as 
she stands at the door with her poor little children round 
her. 
It is wonderful that a man can look at his family when he 
knows that he is depriving them of food and clothes to gratify 
a fondness for drinking; there is such cruelty and selfishness 
in his conduct, that it cannot fail to make him angry with 
himself, and wretched, in spite of the unmanly pleasure he 
may take in the taste of the beer. He must have a heart of 
stone to throw away sixpence after sixpence, when his little 
ones are running about almost without shoes to their feet, 
and crying to their mother for more bread. But it would be 
better for him if these sixpences were thrown away. Alas! 
they are entered in a long and heavy account, which will 
too surely appear against him one day, soon. Not one 
of them is lost; and perhaps when he leasts expects it, he 
will be called upon to reckon it up. Not many weeks ago, 
an old man, who had led a life of sin, went home, after 
taking a pint of beer among the worthless company in a 
beer-house, sat down in his chair, and died. 1 Who can tell 
when he quits the same favourite haunt, whether he also 
may not die as suddenly and quite as unprepared ? 
It is not the wife and children only against whom the 
man who likes drink offends. There is a God who is “ of purer 
eyes than to behold iniquity,” whose Word he casts behind 
him, and whose power he defies,—whose mercy he refuses, 
and to whose calls and warnings lie alike closes his ears. Let 
him, even if he can resist the ties of nature, the wife and chil¬ 
dren who look to him for support, still tremble at the thought 
that “ for all these things God shall bring him to judgment.” 
His cottage, which might be the abode of harmony and love, 
is a scene of destitution and unhappiness ; his daily labour, 
which might he a cheerful and sanctified work, is a weary, 
distasteful toil; and his weekly~-earnings, which might be 
blessed and increased, are the source of additional sin ;—yet 
neither cottage, nor labour, nor gain, miserable as they are 
now, can compare with that dark abode, that unceasing 
agony, and those terrible wages, which are the portion of all 
who keep not the law of their God. 
WALKS. 
I wish Mr. Beaton would give us his promised instruc¬ 
tions for the proper making of walks. I see he refers to it 
again in his review of Mr. Kemp’s work on “Landscape Gar¬ 
dening." The construction of walks does not seem to have 
attracted the observation of any one to the extent it ought 
to do ; at least, what little I have read tends all one way'— 
an excavation more or less deep filled up with matter foreign 
to that of the adjoining ground. Having, during the last 
few years, formed several walks over ground exceedingly 
retentive of water, I thought there could be no better way 
than enticing it to the foundation of the walk, and from 
thence conveying it away by drains running longitudinally 
underneath. The details of my plan will be found recorded 
in The Cottage Gardener some months back, followed by 
