'
Where, oh where, has this gentle shepherd gone? Have spinning-jennies
swallowed him up? Alas! as was observed of Mrs. Harris, "there's no such
a person." Did he _ever_ exist? We have a strong suspicion that he never
did, save in the imaginations of poets.
Before the age of railroads and sanitary reformers, the pastoral life of
the Arcadians was a beautiful myth, The Blue Book men have exploded it
for ever. The agricultural labourers have not decent houses,--only
miserable huts, to live in. They have but few provisions for cleanliness
or decency. Two rooms for sleeping and living in, are all that the
largest family can afford. Sometimes they have only one. The day-room,
in addition to the family, contains the cooking utensils, the washing
apparatus, agricultural implements, and dirty clothes. In the sleeping
apartment, the parents and their children, boys and girls, are
indiscriminately mixed, and frequently a lodger sleeps in the same and
only room, which has generally no window,--the openings in the
half-thatched roof admitting light, and exposing the family to every
vicissitude of the weather. The husband, having no comfort at home,
seeks it in the beershop. The children grow up without decency or
self-restraint. As for the half-hearted wives and daughters, their lot
is very miserable.
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