by Act of Parliament, that woman was my wife.

I loved my wife very dearly, and her loss nigh upon broke my heart. I know that, ever since, my heart has been bent double like my back.

But that is not all. If Lucinda had grown up a comfort to me, I should have got over that loss in time; but Act of Parliament was against me. You see the Act was passed; and the board schools were built to teach children to hate work and love idleness. My Lucinda learned to read and write; but she learned to read yellow-backed, silly, romantic novels, and to write loveletters to a score of idle boys. She had been got out of love of home by schooling, and given a distaste for all domestic work. Now I ask you to go round in any parish in the country, and inquire of the farmers what has been the result of the Education Act. They will tell you, one and all, the same tale: they can get no servant girls who will work; they have acquired at school such a distaste for domestic work, and such a craving for novelreading and dress, that were it not that there still linger on a few old girls who have never been to board school, the farmhouses would be without servant girls. Ask the parents, they will tell you the same. The schools have taken their daughters away from home and from home work, so that they cannot, and will not, attend to domestic duties. I say what every one knows, except the gentlemen in Parliament who passed the law for the demoralisation of our young women that is what I call the Education Act, judging from its fruits. I know well enough that it robbed me of my Lucinda. I could not get her to take her mother's place in the house; she did not like the drudgery of cleaning, and baking, and boiling; she

a

wanted, she said, to go into situation in a town, where there was high wages and not much to do. Well, after a while of vain effort to get her to keep house for me, I gave it up, and got her a situation where there were four servants kept, and only two in family, and the wage eighteen pounds a-year.

'Now, my dear," said I, "save all the money you can, and put it away against bad times."

She came to see me after a few months. She had on a real sealskin jacket, and a hat with a real ostrich - feather. She was going to leave her place, she said—the work was too much for her. If she could find a situation where five servants were kept and there was only one in family, that, perhaps, might suit her; and as this would be her second place, she would ask twenty pounds. She went away. Whether she got the situation or not I do not know. Since that day I have not seen her, but I have heard of her,—and I don't care to see her again. That young woman was driven to the devil by Act of Parliament; it not only sent her to the devil, but it robbed me of a daughter, and plunged me in abject poverty.

What could I do, with no one to look after my comforts? I sank into greater poverty and deeper discomfort. The time that my wife lived was a happy time to me. I had my meals regular, well cooked, and the house was in order. Now I got my meals as I could; I ate anything, cooked anyhow by myself. I took to spirits, and drank away my cares. You may say that Act of Parliament made a drunkard of me, for it robbed me of my wife and my daughter, and left me without a care or a hope in the world. I lost my donkey, and my business came to an end. I

fell ill, and was sick for three months. I hardly know how I got through it; I think I lived chiefly out of the proceeds of the remainder of my rags and furniture, which I sold to another who came in on my beat, and who gave me a trifle for the goodwill. Then the vicar's wife, the Rev. Mrs Forward, saw me, and sent me soup and custard-pudding from the par

sonage.

When I got round, application was made for me to the Board of Guardians, and I was allowed a shilling a-week and a loaf. Then the vicar-that is, the husband of the Rev. Mrs Forward-offered to find me some work in his garden at ninepence a-day, three times a week. I accepted thankfully; but when the Board of Guardians learned that I was doing something to earn a livelihood, they cut me off my shilling a-week and loaf of bread. You see they do everything they can to encourage idleness, and set their faces like flint against self-help. Well, after that, the Rev. Mrs Forward came to me and said, "Joe Barrable," said she, you are a dirty old man."

66

"Thanky, ma'am," says I in reply, touching my forehead.

"You are, Joe," she went on. "Now I am willing to do what I can for you; but I cannot-I literally cannot-for reasons I need not specify, have you about the stable-yard and garden, unless you are cleaner. I do not mind employing you permanently at fourand-sixpence a-week in fetching water in the water-cart, and brushing the drive, and tidying the backyard and the stable-court, and doing various odd jobs; but I cannot and I will not employ you in your present dirty condition. I am not alluding only to your garments," here she raked me with her eye,-"I can supply you with

an old suit of Mr Forward's, in which-other matters being rectified-you will be presentable; but I must, and I will have you cleaner, if you are to receive from me permanent employment."

"What do you mean, ma'am?" I asked, in unfeigned surprise.

"What do I mean!" echoed Mrs Forward, reddening; "I mean to have you washed."

"I-I-washed!" I staggered back against the garden-wall. "Yes; scrubbed-scoured.” "Scrubbed

scoured!" I exclaimed; and I heard a roaring in my ears like the sound of the Atlantic in a storm.

"You want it," said Mrs Forward, and turned on her heel.

It was some time before I could recover myself. The shock of the suggestion was almost too much for my nervous system. I to be washed! Now I am quite sure that operation had not been performed on me since I was in prison about the monument, and I had been married and become a widower since then.. I did not believe that my constitution would stand it. I do not, now. But what was to be done? If I refused, then I should be turned out of my work at the vicarage, and I had already lost my shilling and loaf from the Board. I must die of starvation, or die of being washed. That was the choice set before me. I know I cannot endure being scrubbed and scoured, I who haven't had a drop of water over me these many years.

However, I submitted. I had no choice but to submit. The operation is to take place in the harness-room, adjoining the stable, and the coachman and the groom are going to operate. I've seen some large horse-sponges wrung out. They are standing on the windowledge in the sun. Creak creak!

Is the pump-handle to be worked all day? What with hot water and cold they must have enough to fill a horse-pond. In the washhouse a great fire has been lighted under the copper. I saw the mistress give out two bars of best primrose soap. The cook has just handed to the groom the sugarbasin full of strong Scottish soda. How shall I stand all this? Are they going to flay me? How shall I live deprived of that crust which nature has provided for the protection and warmth of the poor? I know that this performance will be the death of me. The Rev. Mrs Forward is a reformer and well meaning. All reformers are well meaning. I have no objection to raise against their principles; it is sport to them to carry out their reforms, but it is death to us, as the frogs said of the boys who threw stones at them. Frogs! Ugh! They live in water. The

idea gives me the cold shivers. Your reformers are pig-headed; they insist in carrying out their reforms to the deadly end; they cannot stop half-way. If the reverend lady had said to me, "Barrable, put your face and hands under the tap," I should not have minded. I could survive that, maybe; but the whole, entire, bodily Barrable! now that is coming it too strong.

These radical extreme ures efface what they propose to reform. I have heard it said that the Jesuits did evil that good might come. There is this to be said for them, the evil was a means to an end-the means for the moment, the good lasting. But these

reformers do good that evil may come; the good is in the intent, and the evil is radical and fatal.

I know that Mrs Forward will kill me out of principle. That is why I write these words. I bear her no ill will. She acts up to her lights. It is the lights I hate; they are like those used by wreckers on the Cornish coast, to mislead and draw to destruction the storm-tossed and unwary.

Hark! I hear the clink of a galvanised iron pail! I look out and see a procession of maids, led by the stable-boy, carrying water to the harness-room, the cold in galvanised iron pails, the hot in cans. Blessed if missus is not in the rear, goading them on, and herself with the watering-pot!

What has the coachman got the Turk's head broom for? That is used only for getting cobwebs out of the corners of the ceiling. I trust there be no cobwebs over me, like very old crusted tawny port. There! I see the groom picking among the horse-sponges, choosing the most compact and void of eyes.

Oh me! the victim of reform ! All right, you need not ring the house-bell. Coming! coming!or rather, from my point of view, Going! going!