The Sun.
London, England, 1846-06-18 00:00:00

FICTION AND REALITY.

OR THE PEASANT OF THE OPERA-HOUSE, AND THE
AGRICULTURAL LABOURER AS HE REALLY IS.--(A
CONTRAST.)

All the fashionable young ladies and the elegantly-
dressed young gentlemen who frequent the opera-house,
have a sort of vague idea that the spruce young peasants
with broad-brimmed straw hats, and shirt-sleeves tied up
with blue ribbon, and flesh coloured silk stockings and
satin tights, as seen on the stage, are true and exact re-
presentations of country labourers ; that these same
peasants, as they call them, are engaged all day senti-
mentally leaning against a tree and playing on a pipe to
a flock of sheep, and dancing every night under trees
illuminated by lamps, with young damsels as elegantly
dressed as themselves. And these young fashionables
think their papas and their uncles, who make protection
speeches in Bond-street or the House of Commons, very
patriotic and wise men ; and that that wicked Sir R.
Peel, that odious Sir James Graham, and that dreadful
revolutionary League, wish to destroy this rural happi-
ness, and to shut up the dear creatures in union work-
houses. And they further believe that all these stories,
got up by Mr. Sheridan and the Rev. Mr. Osborne and
others, about labourers breaking stones, with cold pota-
toes in their bags, and their wives and children with
nothing to eat but cabbage leaves and horse beans
boiled togetber, and wages being only seven shillings
a week—are inventions of free traders to make " pro-
tection to native industry" unpopular, and to bring
that worthy class, the country gentlemen, into contempt,
and that it is all a cunningly devised scheme to inveigle
these charming and interesting young men and women,
who dance so divinely and sing so charmingly in chorus,
into horrid and pestilential factories, which they are
never allowed to leave to return to their dear country
pastimes.
These same fashionable young ladies and gentlemen,
living at the west-end of London, where they see no-
thing but gold lace, equipages, elegant dresses, and tall
footmen; or, if in the country, surrounded by all the
profusion and tasteful appendages of a gentleman's seat
—draw all their ideas of rural life not imbibed at the
opera from the pet lady's maid who married the hand-
some footman, and who lives at the beautiful and tasty
lodge at the entrance of the park, and who always
curtseys so low when the carriage passes, and is so
thankful for religious tracts, securing thereby the
broken
dainties from the hall, and enough of cast-off clothes for
her family—not to mention blankets and coats at
Christmas.

These very ignorant and sentimental young gentle-
folks know nothing of cottages in ruins, the mother in
consumption, children in rags, no fire except a few stolen
sticks, a dinner of boiled cabbage leaves and horse beans.
No I the stern realities of truth would have no charms
.
for them, so they give themseves up to the arca_tn,
fancies of opera tableaux. And so, buried in awoorlf
the
deception and delusion, like the French noblessefor the day
last generation, they are totally onp par
4of retributi6D, h of redeemng
It is to be ho'
which may come like arethief in
to avert this
ned that there is
virtue in free trkact: enourgop,
. now within_ our g
awful catastrophe.—:, Sir
.....„.._,...._,...____.-weggle.

t extraordinary feat in
EXPRESS RIDING.—The mos. was accomplished by a
the way of express riding, in modern times. -'ught the news of the
boy aged fifteen years, Fred. Tyler, who bt, -v to Mobile. The
us
battles of the Bth and 9th inst. from Montgomiu. -,, and during
distance, 190 miles, was accomplished in thirteen hi, vie of which
the entire night he caught and saddled his horses, no, sing the
were in readiness, as he was not looked for by those hit. ,1 70
horses in charge. lie was rewarded by a contribution purse y.
clonal-B.—Nes Orleans PaPw.