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IRISH HUMOUR-POWER OF THE PRIESTS.

TEMPORARY BAD EFFECTS OF MACHINERY.

MANUFACTURING machines may assuredly be detrimental to the labourers whom they throw out of employ. But as they produce a greater profit and a greater demand for the article, they add to the mass of wealth and of capital, the only source whence employment, wages, food, population, are derived. They are, therefore, beneficial to the nation, because the ultimate effect is a balance of good. To the work-people thus thrown out of employment they are undoubted evils. It is easy for a speculating political economist to say, these discharged work-people will turn their attention to some other means of employment. How are they to live in the mean time, if they have neglected to save when full employment enabled them? Their wages do little more than furnish them and their families with food from day to day in such a country as Britain. A week's want will bring them on the parish. Moreover, the books of political economy do not sufficiently consider tha "time" is one of the elements that should always be taken into consideration. It is not easy to move twenty-thousands pounds from one branch of manufacture to another, or to convert a man, whose life has been employed in spinning cotton or making pins, into a seaman or a farmer.

my parish-easy knowing I was sleeping at the same time. There's fresh holy water at the door-take plenty of it-THIS, besides being a true story, is one of the most sure I never begrudged ye; for, God save us! poor ignorant genuinely Irish we ever met with; and we pretend to some craythurs like you can't see how the very air is full of evil knowledge of Ireland, to which we hope the SCHOOL MAS-spirits things that go buzzing about like blue-bottles, and TER will yet bear testimony. Mr. O'Dwyer of Water-whisper ye to forget yer God, and yer duty, and yer priest. ford, being sadly annoyed by his nephew wedding a low (Martin Doyle! is the horse gone lame, that ye never sent and inferior person, resolved to punish his heir-presump-a sod o' turf to my poor place, and yer own rick built up tive by taking a wife to himself. He judiciously fixed up- as high as the hill o' Howth! Oh! Martin, Martin, yer on a young lady whose father had much influence in the a bitter sinner, and so waş yer father before ye.) And in county, and was, moreover, to receive a real fortune of a regard, as I said, of Mr. O'Dwyer's money: look to it, I thousand guineas on her wedding-day. The ceremony say, directly; or else (and ye'll have reason to think o' over, bride and bridegroom prepared to depart for their my words)-every guinea will be changed into a torch o' abode, which had been "illigantly fitted up." The thou-fire and brimstone to scorch the flesh of yer bones!-look sand guineas, which were literally told down, were thrown, to it, I say, once more—FOR IF YOU DON'T there, be à l'Irlandaise, into an ancient trunk, amongst other sun-off with yerself, every mother's son of ye; and no blessing dries appertaining to Mr. and Mrs. Dermot O'Dwyer. from me 'll any of ye have this day :-take care, you with This trunk was strapped at the back of a nondescript gig, the white stockings and bran new beaver, how you got (rather an uncomfortable machine of the "make-shift" them! Pack, I say." It is no less true than extraordinary, species,) two fine spirited horses were harnessed to it, and as showing the power possessed by an illiterate but truly so the fair bride was conveyed to her future dwelling. honest priest, that before the next morning dawned the The next morning the bridegroom, wanting some money, money was returned, with the exception of ten or twelve thought he would go to his black trunk for it; but, on guineas, which were doubtless lost, as some heavy rain had counting the sum over-not of his own free will, but by fallen during the night." the advice of his servant Dennis O'Hay-into what he called his cash-box, he was dismayed at the discovery that the sum was minus three hundred and sixty guineas! "Plaze ye'r honour," says Dennis, "that's no way strange, seeing that the mice, or may-be the rats, the beasts! have, by way of employment, eat as good as seven or eight holes in the heart's blood o' the thrunk, bad cess to 'em for a pack o' Tories!" It was quite true-plenty of holes there certainly were; and now nothing could be done, except trying to get the money back again. In those days there was but one way of effecting this sending for Father Dillon, the kind but illiterate parish priest, and inducing him to " speak of it from the altar."—" And sure I'll do that same, honey, with all the veins of my heart," he said, "there's not one of them shall dare even to drink a drop of it this warm weather. I'm glad I heard it before the confessions; for in them we're bound, ye understand." Next Sunday Father Dillon from the altar made the following proclamation!"Good people (though upon my conscience, that's more nor I can say to ye all)-but good, bad and indifferent, then-just as you stand before me- (Mrs. Dacy, ma'am, stuff something in that child's mouth, to hinder him from kicking up such a bobbery)-as I was saying, just as ye are, I want to discourse ye. My good friend and parishioner, Dermot O'Dwyer, Esq., who has lived man and boy in the one place for more than three hundred vears, without ever spending cross or coin-(Jerry, Jerry | ringan, agra! just clap ye'r wig into the broken pane that's at the back o' my head; Tim Dooly, you that call yerself glazier, it's astonishing to me, coming to this holy house as ye do every Sunday, that ye havn't had the grace to stick a bit of glass in the window for the love of God and yer priest)-cross or coin, as I said, in foreign parts, bat spends every farthing he has, and ten to the back of them, amongst you-(ye unruly pack of devil-serving creatures like a gentleman as he is, seeing he could not be otherwise. Well, Mr. O'Dwyer has had the misfortune to drop out of a blackguard hole in his thrunk a matter of about-but the sum's no consarn of yours—I know what it is; and what's more, I know who's got it; and if every farthing o' the money isn't returned by to-morrow morning, either to me or to his honour, I'll publish ye, and penance ye, and excommunicate ye;-and it's the devil 'll have nice pickings then, when none dare say, God save, or God speed ye! And sure it's the black shame has come ver me, to think that the minute ye see the temptation the Ould Boy threw in yer way, ye didn't come straight to me, and let me know the rights of it. Oh, you in the blue clock [about sixty women wore no other garb] 'twas ill luck took ye so soon from yer own hearth stone last Tuesday—but if ye repent and return the money, I'll contrive pa penance that will clear ye once more, for yer poor souls' ake. 0!010! to think how busy the Ould One was in

The introduction and improvement of machinery, then, appears to be always productive of more or less misery among the poor for a time. But we are not to legislate upon every case where the imperfection of human arrangements is productive of some portion of unavoidable evil. If the clear result of the improvement be a balance of good, we ought to be content. Good, pure and unmixed, is not to be expected in the course of human affairs. Moreover why is an ingenious and industrious man to be prohibited from exercising his ingenuity and industry, when they give him an advantage over his less capable, less skilful, or less energetic neighbour? Are we to make laws for the protection of imbecility? or to put a weight on the shoulders of a strong man, that he may be brought down to the level of performance of his weaker competitor? If the introduction of machinery adds to profit, adds to the demand for the article, adds to the perfection of the article, adds to the wealth of the manufacturer, and thereby to the wealth of the nation, and thereby to capital, and by capital to employment, by employment to wages and food, and by them to the mass of healthy population-if articles before scarce and dear, and confined to the few, are brought within the purchase of the many, and the comforts, conveniences and pleasures of life made procurable at a cheaper rate, it is enough. We ought to be contented with such a result, although it be attended for a short time with a large amount of evil. The permanent advantages of machinery will form another article, next week.

ORIGIN OF TWO GREAT ENGLISH FAMILIES, THE PEELS AND THE JENNIES.

IN a tour through England, Sir Richard Phillips at

Manchester was introduced to the indigent daughters of Hargreave, the inventor of the spinning-jenny, the moving crank, &c. &c. They were poor aged women, living on parochial charity in Salford. "My father and mother," said the eldest of them, "were spinners by hand like all the villagers at that time in Lancashire, of whom thousands abounded through the country. They had many children, but they sent each, as soon as it had the use of fingers, to assist in spinning; but our joint earnings were so scanty, that my father, who was very studious and ingenious, began to consider how he could multiply our earnings. Early and late he used to be making trials, and often was reproved by my mother as a foolish schemer; but at length he produced a machine, which he called by her name, Jenny, and set it to work in her bed-room, where I and my sister, by its means, spun as much as five or six could do, and finer and more even work. He worked for a Mr. Peel, then a little master in Blackburn, and beginning very soon to carry home more work in a week, and more uniform in quality than others, Mr. P. often marvelled at his industry and cleverness. My father then made another machine, and keeping it a profound secret, he augmented the surprise of Master Peel; and he so teased my father about it, that at length he told him he had a bit of a contrivance to multiply the powers of the common wheel. Master Peel then teased him to let him see it, but my father refused again and again. At length Master Peel so worretted him, that he consented to let him see it, provided he told no one, and gave his word of honour not to imitate it. And sure enough," said the poor woman, “one morning, for I remember it as though it was but yesterday, my father brought in Master Feel and his partner, Mr. Yates, while I and my sister were working away at Jenny in the chamber, I was much flustered, but after they had seen it work, and asked many questions, Master Peel dropt sixpence on the floor for me, and went away. The folk now began to talk about father's machine; and as he soon began to get money, and was better off than many, a great uproar was made about his machine: and one day when my father was from home, a great mob assembled, broke into the house, destroyed the two Jennies, all our furniture, windows, and every thing in the house. I shall never forget my poor father's coming home, and not having a chair to sit upon, nor any room which He was almost ruined; and being pointed at and jeered by every body, he could no longer bear the neighbourhood, so he and all of us set out for Nottingham; and there my father went into partnership with Dick Arkwright, who had been used to shave my father at Bolton; and they went on in the spinning, my father inventing the moving crank, and making all kinds of improvements. But the partnership was out before much was got, and then my father went on making machines for others, till he died in the year 1788, and we buried him, poor anxious soul, at Nottingham. He left my mother and seven or eight of us; and as she could not make machines, others stole my father's inventions; and my mother fell into trouble after trouble, and her children into poverty. My brothers afterwards upset Arkwright and Strutt's patent to serve others, not themselves; and we have lived to see thousands raised to wealth by our poor father's invention; but they never thought of us. We did hope that Mr. Peel, (the father of the Secretary of State), might do something for us, and Mr. Brotherton of Salford, kindly wrote to him, but he did not even vouchsafe an answer, which I and my sisters thought hard; because, when my father left Blackburn and went to Nottingham, he was the first to imitate what my father had shewn him, and made his fortune by our jennies and their improvement. Dick Arkwright used to claim my father's invention as his own, and therefore would do no

had windows left.

A bon mot, which it was said the Peels never forgave, is attributed to George IV. On hearing of the marriage of one of the Peels, to a Lady Jane Something, he laughed, and said, “Ah, these Peels!-They'll ever be after the Jennies."

thing for poor mother; and when our evidence upset his patent, he never forgave the family. Mother once applied to Bobby Peel, as we used to call him when I was a girl; but like his father, the Secretary did nothing for us. i good man Mr. Brotherton gets for me from a charity."―This am therefore content with the 3s. 6d. per week, which the poor old woman died in 1829, but two of her sisters were then, and may still be alive, unpensioned even with 3s. 6d. a-week, to prove the immense difference there is between the legitimate daughters of a most ingenious and meritorious man, and undoubted benefactor of his species, and the reader may fill up the blank.

COLUMN FOR YOUTH.

D. D.

DUTIES OF CHILDREN TO THEIR PARENTS. CHANNING, an Eminent American Preacher. You are required to view and treat your parents with respect. Your tender inexperienced age requires that you think of yourselves with humility, and conduct yourselves with modesty; that you respect the superior age, and wisdom, and improvements of your parents; and observe towards them a submissive deportment. Nothing is more unbecoming in you, nothing will render you more unpleasant in the eyes of others, than forward or contemptuous conduct towards your parents. There are children, and I wish I could say there are only a few, who speak to their parents with rudeness, grow sullen at their rebukes, behave in their presence as if they deserved no attention, hear them speak without noticing them, and rather ridicule than ho

nour them.

Do

assuming and selfish spirit. Regard your parents as kindly Beware, my young friends, lest you grow up with an given you by God, to support, direct, and govern you in your present state of weakness and inexperience. Express your respect for them in your manner and conversation. not neglect those outward signs of dependence and inferiority which suit your age; you are young, and should therefore take the lowest place, and rather retire than thrust yourselves forward into notice. You have much to learn, and should therefore hear instead of seeking to be heard. You are dependent, and should therefore ask instead of demanding what you desire, and you should receive every thing from your parents as a favour and not as I do not mean to urge on you a slavish fear of mingle a sense of their superiority with your love. your parents. Love them and love them ardently, but Feel a confidence in their kindness, but let not this confidence make you rude and presumptuous, and lead to indecent familiarity; talk to them with openness and freedom, but never contradict with violence, never answer with passio

a debt.

or contempt.

VERSES FOR AN ALBUM.

BY FRANCIS JEFFREY, LORD ADVOCATE OF SCOTLAND.
WHY write my name midst songs and flowers
To meet the eye of lady gay?

I have no voice for lady's bowers,
For page like this no fitting lay.
Yet though my heart no more must bound
At witching call of sprightly joys,
Mine is the brow that never frowned
On laughing lips or sparkling eyes.
No-though behind me now is closed
The youthful paradise of love,
Yet I can bless with soul composed,
The lingerers in that happy grove.
Take then, fair girls, my blessing take,
Where'er amid its charms you roam,
Or where by western hill or lake,
You brighten a serener home.

EDINBURGH: Printed by and for JOHN JOHNSTONE, 19, St. Jame Square.-Published by JOHN ANDERSON, Jun., Bookseller, 55, Nor Bridge Street, Edinburgh; by JOHN MACLEOD, and ATKINSON & booksellers, Glasgow; and sold by all Booksellers and Venders Cheap Periodicals.

THE

AND

EDINBURGH WEEKLY MAGAZINE.

CONDUCTED BY JOIIN JOHNSTONE.

THE SCHOOLMASTER IS ABROAD.-LORD BROUGHAM.

No. 2.-VOL. I.

SATURDAY, AUGUST 11, 1832. PRICE THREE-HALFPENCE.

HOLYDAY RAMBLES ROUND EDINBURGH. taught. Its structure and arrangements ought to be

BY ZACHARY ZIGZAG, ESQ.

No. II. THE ROMAN CAMP-BY THE RAILWAY.

Hill, brook, nor dell, nor rock, nor stone,
Lie in the path, to me unknown.

THE ROMAN CAMP was announced last Saturday, as the most expansive and commanding point of view in the three Lothians. The easiest and best mode of approach is to go along the viaduct, and then keeping to the left, follow the rail-way leading to the Marquis of Lothian's coal works on the face of the extensive ridge it crowns. The distance from where the waggon stops to the extreme point, or ROMAN CAMP, may be about two miles and a half, estimated distance on a hot day. The country is quite open, and a plantation crowning the ridge makes an unerring landmark, though there is no danger of straying. The mineralogist will find objects of his own, with which we, a popular guide, have nothing to do. Though this long ridge is no obstinate hill, every foot is an ascent, more or less gentle, for the full two miles which the Camp rises above the level of Newbattle valley on the side we are ascending; and above the valley of the Tyne, or of Crichton Castle, on the other.

At every advancing step, the view, looking backward, becomes wider and more varied, though we see yet but the half of the grand panorama of from 40 to 60 miles in diameter, which the summit gives us entirely. To the SCHOOLMASTER ABROAD, one of the most interesting objects on the way, is about half way up-a new Parochial School-house, and the handsomest structure of the kind we have seen in any country parish in Scotland,-where the apparent object of some heritors is, how they may most dexterously evade the law for building and maintaining school-houses, which they seem to consider a flagrant encroachment on their purses. This edifice, which may be mistaken for a farm-house of the better class, or a factor's residence, is situated at a central point of the parish, among the coal mines, though there is no population in the immediate neighbourhood. The new school is, we understand, well attended, and well

a pattern to Scottish heritors. Let the pedestrian breathe a blessing on it, there where it stands, a star on the hill-side, long to effuse the blessings of light and intelligence, and pass quietly on to WEST-HOUSES, a small collier hamlet immediately under the Roman Camp. It commands a splendid view, and is remarkable for a sprinkling of those old ash trees, which our rustic ancestors admired so much, that, save a few alders, and mountainashes, to ward off witch-craft, and make spin.. dles, they planted no other timber; so that the ash with its graceful branchery, and deep green foilage, still forms the principal ornament of our most primeval farm-touns and hill-side tafts. Here, at the spring, you may lay in water for the remainder of your outward yoyage, as you will find none in higher latitudes. Here also you may Rest and be thankful, under the last tree; and look round you at your ease on the magnificent prospect opening far down the Firth of Forth, and sweeping round through West Lothian, and terminating in the farthest western point of the Pentland ridge.

As one ascends, the view gradually expands, till standing near the summit, the enlarged line of prospect sweeps from the Bass-Rock out to sea, along the hills of Fife, the Lomonds, and the Ochils, round to the Pentlands, the Moorfoot, and part of the Soutra hills; and towering behind, and over the Pentlands far in the South-west, to the shawdowy top of Tintoc, and the other mountains in the Upper Ward of Clydesdale, and about the bordering sources of the Tweed and the Nith. The fairest portion of Mid-Lothian lies at your feet. Along the courses of both the hidden Esks the eye travels eastward, passing many a lovely nook, wooded slope, and ripening corn-field, from Woodhouselee and the Bush lying warmly in the lap of the Pentlands, down all the way to the Bay of Preston. In the prospect Edinburgh Castle and the picturesque ridge of the old city keep their pre-eminence, though taken thus at Roman 'vantage. So does Arthur's Seat,—which, rising isolated in solitary majesty, occupying its full place in the champaign, unelbowed and unshouldered, exhibits from all points more of the

mountain sublime, than heights of far greater | anything short of a conscience haunted by the real altitude. The seats of the aristocracy of commission of some horrible crime account to many Mid-Lothian are in general only indicated by the of them for her strange anti-social habits, and wood which surrounds them; so domestically are kirk-going antipathy. Her independent, self-retheir sites chosen. That of the Duke of Buc-lying character, was quite overlooked; and the cleuch, from this point, shews merely a flat ampli- qualities of a mind too strong or too stubborn to tude of well-wooded park. Dalhousie Castle is be bent down to the mean or petty miseries of a however finely conspicuous; and the Drum, the life, which had driven her in preference to take old residence of the noble family of Somerville, refuge in this roofless hut. For aught that is so completely lost to travellers in its vicinity, accurately known of the female hermit, she rebecomes an imposing object viewed four miles off, mains a fresh untouched property for the poets from this sloping ridge. But it is my purpose merely and romance writers, and may flourish in the Anto indicate, not to expatiate, on the objects to be nuals of the year. The probability is, that Meg seen-to open up, not forestall the pleasures of was neither more nor less than a wandering printhis ramble. To those familiar with many of the cess of the gipsies; who, as youth receded, began spots in view, there is one unfailing effect, aftere to feel that lying "in kilns and barns" was even long absence. The poet expresses it— more miserable than this solitary abode, in which her condition improved, and to which she naturally grew every year more attached. Peace be with her mysterious memory!

By thousand petty fancies I was crost,

To see the trees that I had thought so tall,
Mere dwarfs, the brooks so narrow, fields so small:-
A juggler's balls old Time about him tossed.

And now we enter the Camp from her house And now we are at the Camp. Its exact site is end, and a few yards of walking, and crossing covered with plantation, and enclosed. The pry- the opposite enclosure, suddenly places before us ing eye of the antiquary is not required in tracing the other half of the panorama, now become a its lines. They are distinctly visible to the most cosmorama; our own legs the pivot on which unpractised spectator. Since the MASTERS OF THE WORLD abandoned this commanding station, it did northward, the prospect again extends from it turns. Now looking southward, as before, we cannot have had many tenants, though some of the ocean by the Bass Rock and North Berwick them have been rather singular personages. A hut Law, along the Lammermoor ridge, on to the was erected here for the use of the military attend-Soutra hills, and the heights of Moorfoot. The ant, during the alarm of French invasion, when the Roman Camp was a signal post. Twenty years back this habitation was abandoned and dilapidated, and in this condition taken possession of byCAMP MEG,

a mysterious female, who kept this mountain hermitage till her death, which happened about four years ago. We have heard twenty editions of her history, each more romantic or more incredible than the other. A century earlier Meg might have graced a tar-barrel on the Major's Knowe.* There still were doubts about a woman who came from no one knew where, and lived no one knew how, being altogether cannie; but they never took a definite or dangerous form. Instead of turning her off the estate as an interloper or squatter, the noble proprietor protected this "kindly tenant,”her solitary habitation was repaired, and, besides obtaining occasional awmouses in meal, or other necessaries, she was allowed to raise a few vegetables, and cut the coarse grass in the Camp, with which she reared a colt or two, which she generally sold at Gifford Fair. Visiters to the Camp were mindful of her wants; and fox-hunters extended their protection to Meg, as a variety among the wild animals. This singular female was conjectured by her nearest neighbours, with whom she held as little intercourse as possible, to be a native of Ireland,—a compliment too readily paid in this country, to every sturdy vagrant; nor could

A square in the High Street of Dalkeith, so named, from the famous or infamous Major Weir, who either lived or had some possession in this town.

valley of the Tyne, which stream here in its infancy, is at this season but a languid rill, lies below us; crowning the opposite banks stand Crichton Castle and Crichton church; an expanse of flat and upland moor swells behind this parish, and that of Borthwick, rising on to Fala parish. Borthwick Castle and church though close at hand, are hidden from us by intervening banks; to the right are uplands, plantations, and high-lying farms rising to the hill-ridges, and to the left the most beautiful division of—

EAST LOTHIAN.

The view this way though neither so rich nor varied as that to be seen from the southern side of the ridge is still of great beauty; and to most sight-seers from Edinburgh, or the west, it must possess more novelty and attraction. The view of East Lothian from Arthur's Seat is distant, and obstructed in the best points by the ridge on which we stand. The spectator will now naturally walk eastward, skirting the plantation:-we defy him to do otherwise. At every new step the view changes and expands, till it takes in a wide sweep of the sea, the coasts of Fife, bays, and headlands, and islands, which may make the eastern point of this ridge the favourite station with many persons. For a resting-place, one, however, prefers the southern stile of the Camp enclosure, with Vogrie and Newland-rigg below us, and Crichton directly opposite, its grey towers rising among pastoral banks, steep, but not abrupt, broken, and diversified, and partially clothed with furze and brushwood. Seen at this distance nothing exteriorly is

changed, since Lord Marmion might have made it | first descending by the route he came, and then his place of sojourn. A herd tending a few sheep through a path, the old road to the South, which and young cattle, must indeed supply the place of may now be called a wooded glade ;-or striking the men-at-arms, and the attendants of the feudal Eastward till he join the Dalkeith road leading lord; an adventurous calf or stirk the warder on South into Lauderdale, he may return by that town. the wall. We cannot find a better guide than Sir There is yet a third and more romantic route, Walter, which the pedestrian who starts early may easily accomplish. To this we shall next week be his guide.

To trace against the Tyne,

through the country expanding before us.

The green-sward way was smooth and good,
Through Humbie's and through Saltoun's wood,
A forest glade, which varying still,
Here gave a view of dale and hill,
There narrower closed, till overhead

A vaulted screen the branches made.

Among the more attractive features of the eastward part of the valley of Tyne, one distinguishes the tower of Cranston Church, Oxenforde Castle, almost buried in stately old woods; and nearer, the handsome new bridge opened the other day at Ford. But the most beautiful peculiarity of the landscape here is wood,-not the solemn old forests around the mansions, but that sprinkled over the whole face of this fertile country; the single trees, and clumps of three or four, and the lines in the hedge-rows, now of stately growth, with which the prescient taste of the proprietors has ornamented their farms and home-steads. They are seen to much advantage at this season, contrasting with the fast-ripening grain; which is again finely contrasted with the soft green of the turnip fields, and the yet sweeter green of the clover. Two months hence, when the woodland has put on the gorgeous apparel of autumn, when the rich brown fallows are lying intersecting the fields of after grass, with a quiet low October sky brooding over all, the landscape from this chosen station will be yet more harmonious and enchanting. But this spot, like every other, has its drawbacks, man's not Nature's: she is ever as faultless as she is fair. On the southern slope of this ridge there are several coal mines, wrought on so small a scale, that the few persons seen about them look more like swart goblins than regular work people. Among them are girls almost children. This may be no fault of either proprietor or miner, but a cruel necessity of the latter, and we are far from blaming any one. There must, however, be something wrong, where, in a Christian land, human beings of tender age are condemned to such unsuitable employment, with its unfailing consequences, a dwarfed mind, if not a stunted and diseased frame-a wretched physical existence, and a degraded moral one-the certain inheritance of unremitting toil and its sure attendant, ignorance. In the bill for regulating the work hours of children in factories, those miserable female children who bear coals-worse off even than the climbing boys should not be forgotten. This is a painful subject for a Holyday Ramble.

The rambler having now transferred to his memory the best county map to be had, and, moreover, feasted his eyes and imagination, has the choice of either returning through Newbattle,

MAID-SERVANTS.

THE worldly condition of servant lasses has improved more within the last fifty years of change than that of any other class of useful labourers; yet it may be questioned if this increased prosperity is not more in show than substance. Certain it is, that, with wages doubled, and in many cases quadrupled, if not more, they enter the married state much worse provided than their predecessors, at a pound of penny-fee in the year. About a century ago, the money wages of maidservants, in the North of Scotland, were so low as seven-and-sixpence a-year, with some allowance for shoes. Even now in Shetland, Orkney, and Caithness, the wages of female servants is exceedingly low, two pounds being about the maximun. While domestic manufactures were carried on, many maid-servants were kept, whose time was occupied in spinning, either for home consumption or for sale; yarn and cloth sent to market being no unimportant part of the household revenue. With some difference of wages in favour of London, the condition of female servants, in most considerable towns, is now pretty much the same. Their condition in 1730 and in 1830 affords an amusing and favourable contrast for the lasses of the time being. We take our first picture from the North of Scotland, then at a very low ebb in the encouragement given to female domestics; and conclude with what is a fair representation of every part of the country now. We quote from an ancient but competent authority.

"They have not a great deal of household work to do; but when that little is done, they are kept to spinning, by which some of their mistresses are chiefly maintained. Sometimes there are two or three of them in a house of no greater number of rooms, at the wages of three half-crowns a-year each, a peck of oatmeal for a week's diet; and happy she that can get the skimming of a pot to mix with her oatmeal for better commons. To this allowance is added a pair of shoes or two, for Sundays, when they go to kirk.

families, I suppose, their standing wages is not much more, "These are such as are kept at board-wages. In larger because they make no better appearance than the others.

"All these generally lie in the kitchen, a very improper place, one would think, for a lodging, especially of such who have not wherewithal to keep themselves clean.

"They do several sorts of work with their feet. I have already mentioned their washing at the river. When they wash a room, which the English lodgers require to be sometimes done, they likewise do it with their feet.

"First, they spread a wet cloth upon part of the floor; then, with their coats tucked up, they stand upon the cloth and shuffle it backward and forward with their feet; then they go to another part and do the same, till they have gone all over the room. After this, they wash the

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