The Sun.
London, England, 1853-09-08 00:00:00

LONDON, THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 1853.

" I do not mind holding the plough in Van
Diemen's Land, but I cannot make up my mind
to do it here," was the remark fully 20 years ago
of a respectable farmer to a friend who was dis-
suading him from emigration. The style of
living expected of him in England, the parlour
life which his daughters must lead, the disinclina-
tion of his sons to work as labourers, combined
with the high rents due to the competition of
his own class, convinced the sensible yeoman that
England was no longer a home for him and his
family. They at least could not enter upon life
in the style in which he was living, and maintain
it ; while neither he nor they had courage to
dismiss all servants to whose work their own
hands were physically competent, and to become
literally working farmers, dining in the kitchen
with their servants. Possibly could they have
done so, they need not have taken the voyage to
Van Diemen's Land. This little incident, how-
ever, is a striking illustration of the painful posi-
tion of a large number of our middle classes, and
of the only remedy which they can look to.
There has been a natural and growing tendency
amongst the class lying between those whom the
income tax begins with and the wealthy, not
merely to educate and cultivate their minds, but
to adopt to the utmost the indulgences and re-

neraents in daily life of those -above them.
'TIB, whose fathers began their apprenticeship
with the rough and handicraft work of their
trade,are brought up merely to superintend
what
they
situations, see have
never worked at ; or, professions,
kinds
are etaryships, and employments of all
demand an soughta for them which will not
their hands l':cr, o.r compel them to soil
superfine black coat.
The daughters, totolleir
in the lio.whoie mothers could do
anything
sweets,
beyond making the
to the attic, dare not vel° from the scullery
eetst,i lest their hands
most delicate pastry (,r
should be unfit for the
The piano,feudal iii'ee,dirnawtihneg-bsZakli
or embroidery.
servants
ri-i' the servants
only
way, with which the parents began
dining at the same time with the
grew up'
room which was enlivened by a fire iii,
was gradually changed as the family
an impassable line was drawn between the kitchen
and the parlour ; the mother and father, indeed,
remain from early habits a kind of connecting
link, but the children have become members of
another caste ; they are young ladies and young
gentlemen of the present half century. The
pipe is exchanged for the cigar, the cheerful
song for the piano, and a thousand things
" very proper for pa' and ma' in their young
days,—whv they won't do now. ' Now this would
all be pretty enough and bearable enough but for
one unhappy result—the young men don't get on,
and the young ladies don't go off ; the former
come back upon their fathers to save them from
sinking, the latter surround mamma till she looks
more like a Lady Abbess than a matron.
It cannot be denied that the evil, as we sup-
pose we must call it, is a wide-spread one. The
lower strata of the middle classes are cultivating
domestic and business habits which will not bring
up and settle families in the world. What, then,
is the remedy for it? There is none whatever
but a return to working
habits. While corn-laws
interfered with the
berant s market for his
w
chief product, and labour was such a drug
deoin
at home that families g their own work was
only. a
,suremeans to fill the
workhouse,
' riOnent to fall back on the ..neou
it is altogether .r
iu-
was. much less. Now
dugtry
Our domestia, servants are rapidly bier gain.
" helps," it being questionable whether Ae:nsTall
not needlan immigration of negroes or coolies, if
we are to retain the mastery in our own houses,

4. Sbi