pose that fact enables me to recollect the following absurd story, which the curate told me that day during our walk. The week before, he said, he had been present at the deathbed of an old woman, who had lived like a Christian, as she was-good old soul; and her neighbours seemed to think she was all right, for one of them said to her: Betty, you be going to heaven shortly, I wish you'd tâk a message to my John? Do'y tell him that I be pretty comfortable, for squire lets me have the cottage rent-free, and I get two shillings a-week from the parish."

"Lor', deary me," said the sick woman in a feeble voice, "how can a poor lame soul like I be going a-rambling and a-scrambling all over heaven, and p'raps not find your John ater all?"

I amused my friend with the story of Lee's answer about "taking no account of curates." "The race of Somersetshire clerks," said he, laughing heartily, 66 were notorious even in the time of Charles II. Did you know that Lord Rochester wrote some lines on the clerk of our adjoining parish-Enmore?"

I confessed I had never heard them.
"Rochester, I believe, married one of the
Malets of Enmore," observed my friend, "and
hence his acquaintance with the parish church.
By the way, there is a portrait of his son, by
Sir Peter Lely, still at Hestercombe. But
here are his lines,-amusing, because they are
local:-

Sternhold and Hopkins had great qualms
When they translated David's Psalms,
To make the heart full glad;
But had it been poor David's fate
To hear thee sing and them translate,
By Jove 'thad made him mad.

"The farmers, too, are a queer set up here," continued the curate. "A few Sundays ago (you remember we had had a long continuance of wet weather), I observed to Brown, that I thought we had better read the prayer for 'fair weather.' 'Oh, sir,' said he, ''tisn't a bit o' good while the wind keeps in this quarter.'

"But this is not so bad as a Devonshire

farmer at my last curacy, who told me he did not believe in the account of the destruction of the walls of Jericho. I inquired the reason of his doubt.

and I count her never will as long as squire lives.""

We had eaten our luncheon, which consisted of a crust of bread and cheese, on Danesborough, a spot interesting to archæologists; and we had resumed our search for botanical specimens further down the Combe, when a thunderstorm came on. This drove us to the shelter of an isolated cottage, which we luckily espied. The only inmate was a very infirm old woman, who was cowering over the hearth, where a few charred sticks kept up the delusion of a fire. To wile the time, the curate produced from his pocket a little volume of "Hudibras," from which he read some passages. Suddenly we heard the old soul at the fire sobbing audibly.

"What is the matter, my good woman?" I inquired.

Oh, sir, it does me a power o' good to hear the Scriptures a-read so beautiful.”

"This reminds me," said the curate, unable to suppress a smile, “of an elderly dame of my acquaintance, who exclaimed on one occa sion, 'Oh, those comfortable words, Mesopotamia, Pamphylia, Thrace !'”

Though he did laugh at the poor woman's mistake, my friend the curate was far too good a fellow not to improve the occasion to her real edification. I thought, as I listened, that if there were a few more like him in those remote districts, we should sooner see the darkness of ignorance dispelled. His was a kindly, honest soul, keenly alive to the ridiculous, but never dead to the truest feelings of our nature. I knew what a struggle his life was with poverty; and I could not but notice that he slipped half-a-crown into the old woman's hand, promising to come again.

As we trudged homewards through the muddy lanes, the clouds cleared off, the sun throwing his slant gleams athwart the landscape-and more than once we stopped to note

Where comes the pale green light in the sky far over the hills.

The jocund spirits which had beguiled our young hearts in the morning had fled; the curate told no more good stories, but he opened his heart to me as he had never done before. With his arm linked in mine, "Why, do you see, sir,' he replied confi- we walked on our way, long after twilight dentially, 'I've a-tried it. You know that had deepened, and it was then he spoke of old linney, that I've always been on wi' the his widowed mother, and how she had desquire about moving up nearer to house? nied herself almost of necessaries to find Well, it's a rotten old thing, not fit to put the cows in, and if anything had a mind to come down wi' the blowing of a horn, thic linney a' ought to; but Lor', sir, I walked round it so many times, and her never moved,

means to send him to college. This touched a chord of sympathy in my heart; from that day the curate and I have been firm friends.

Youth has need of friends!

CORNELIA A. H. CROSSE

They have the stick at first." Before being set to plaiting, the little things are taught to clip the plait, and for this purpose are furnished with tiny pairs of scissors, which are suspended by means of strings to their waists. As might be anticipated, the educational standard is extremely low. The Rev. John Clegg, Rector of Toddington, says, "The parents of the poor children only send their little ones to school when there are few orders from the plait dealers. Whenever there is a great demand for plait, every child that can plait is made to do so." The results are soon told. Ignorance and immorality are ripe in these districts. According to the reverend gentleman beforementioned, "hardly one young man or woman can write even his or her own name; the marriage registers can prove this. Very few can read, judging by the congregation at church, very few of whom use a prayer-book. Vast numbers of young men and women are to be seen and heard loitering about the lanes at night, and especially on Sundays. Their morals are at a very low ebb. A large average of the women have illegitimate children, and some at such an early age as quite to startle even those who are at home in criminal statistics."

and more useful kind of article. The straw hardest work which the teacher can have." used for plaiting is purchased by the plaiters in open market, the characteristic features of which have been effectively described by Mr. Knight. Speaking of the straw-plait markets at Luton, he says,- "At nine o'clock the market bell rings, and the traffic begins. My attention is first attracted by the dealers in straw prepared for plaiting. These come from the neighbouring hamlets, in which they are employed in the selection of the straw from the farmers' barns; in sorting it into different degrees of fineness; in cutting it into a regulated length; in bleaching it by exposure to sulphur fumes; and in making it up for sale in little bundles. The straw-plaiters come to the market to buy this straw; as they have also come to sell their plait. Those women whose goods have not been collected by a middleman stand in rank, their small dealings being principally confined to the private makers of bonnets at their own homes, who chaffer with the plaiters for a score or two of the plait. Carts have come in from distant places with loads of plait. The dealers are opening their bags upon the stalls. The commodity will sustain no material damage from the rain; and so the trade goes forward as if all were sunshine. The buyers here are the agents of the great houses. They rapidly decide upon quality and price; enter the bargain in their note-books; the bags are carried to the warehouses; the loaded tressels are soon relieved of their burthen; and in an hour or two the street is empty."

66

The workers employed in straw-plaiting commence their labours at an extremely early age, so early," says Mr. Y. E. White, "that it seems impossible to believe that their employment can be thought of any real value." The common age for commencing to learn the plaiting appears to be from three to four years, although many do not begin till five years. The schools are not always devoted to mere instruction in plaiting, but are sometimes a combination of the infant and the plaiting schools. They are generally held in a small cottage room, where all the essentials of efficient ventilation are wanting, and where the children are, to use the words of a witness, "packed close as herrings." The ages of the children in these schools vary from one year to six or seven, and Mr. White tells us, "that at one place visited by him an infant under two was fingering some straws in imitation of its neighbours. When the children are deemed old enough to be initiated into the mysteries of straw-plaiting, they are kept to work for the purpose of learning the same. This, according to the testimony of a schoolmistress, is the

The evidence of Mr. Clegg is corroborated by that of Mr. Horley, postmaster and registrar of the Toddington district, who states that the work is very injurious to the morals of the employed. The proportion of illegiti mate births in his district was 10 per cent., but in one village, out of twelve births registered by him, five were illegitimate. He attributes much of the evil to the night-schools, on leaving which the girls mingle with the young men returning from their field labours. "Besides this," says he, "the girls and lads get out together with their plaiting into the fields, and they have no instruction or means of amusing themselves, such as newspapers, &c." The hours during which the children attend the plaiting schools are from 9 a.m. to 1, and from 2 p.m. to 4. When the boys are old enough to assist in farm-work, they are taken from the plaiting schools, but the girls, when about seven years old have their hours of labour increased, being compelled to return to the school at 5 p.m., and work till 8. No attempt is made by the parents or the schoolmistresses to give the children any education. Indeed, many of the schoolmistresses are themselves utterly incompetent to do so, being almost as illiterate as the children, and in some cases possessing "such a dubious character" as to render it unadvisable to place the young under their care. These considerations, however, have no weight with