Northern tribune. [volume] (Cheboygan, Mich.) 1875-1885, 1883-06-02
The British YeOman.

1t must be remembered that the resi-
dent owner of a small property-small
enough to separate him from the gentry,
yet large enough to make him very
important parsonage in his own imme-
date neighborhood-m in a very
circumscribed area, and seldom ii ever
comes in contact with any one superior
to himself. The bad effect of such life
has been shown by George Eliot in
"Silas Marner,' and what the petty
squire was then the yeoman is now. AS
a general rule, he will not be in the I'M
mediate neighborhood of any OF the reg
ular gentry; and if he is, he will see lit
tie of them-much less than the tenant
farmer sees. He lives usually at dis
lance from town; he holds himself
above the ordinary occupiers; and,
though of course he associates with
them, does not care for their opinion.
He reads little but the local papers, and
his prejudices are of the most obstinate
character The tenant-farmer has at all
events his landlord to look up to, and
his good opinion to cultivate. The
landlord himself has the opinion of So
ciety to control him. But the yeoman
looks up to nobody. He is totally mac
cessible to those influences which act as
a check upon his neighbors. He is
above the opinion of the village and be-
low the opinion of the Hall. He is per-
fectly Indifferent to both; and his vices,
instead of being shrouded in metropoli-
tan obscurity, are practiced openly be-
fore all his little world, and set no good
example to the agricultural laborer, who
learns to look on them as the privilege
of wealth.
Such men no doubt do cherish certain
old-fashioned virtues with great tenacity
and fidelity. They are honorable, hos
pitable, charitable, and as rule unos-
tentatious. They have inherited tradi-
tons of punctuality and integrity in
money dealings, which certainly justify
part of the admiration bestowed
upon them. They are to the best
of their knowledge patriotic, and in one
sense of the word religious; for practice
and theory are not required to CORES
pond in the rural districts any more
than they are elsewhere. The yeoman,
with all his drawbacks, has many claims
on our regard. His virtues, indeed, are
curiously interviewer with prejudices
which detract somewhat from their
merit. His hatred of novelty, by no
means an evil instinct in itself, COM
bines with his jealousy of interference
to set him against all change imposed
upon him from without. Government
inspection, school rates and the like are
odious in his eyes, and with all his con-
: servative reverence for existing institu-
lions there mingles vein of that old
fashioned jealousy of expenditure which,
though formerly one of the notes OF
Toryism, and always tradition with
the country party, may easily be carried
too far in the days in which we now
live. His Guardianship is almost al
ways of the narrowest Protestant type;
and nowhere in England did the revival
of 1888 find such bitter and obstinate
opponents as it did among the small
rural landowners. In politics he has
some singular ideas, derived apparently
from the nature of his own occupation
He is for keeping up our military ant
naval efficiency, but thinks that soldiers
and sailors should not be allowed tc
''eat their heads off," He is stancf
,admirer of the British Empire, and be-
lieves as rule that England and bel
colonies ought to form one compass
whole, acting together against the rest
of the world, and trading exclusively
with each other. This he calls living
within ourselves. We may be sure thai
he is at heart protectionist-a circum
D stance that is occasionally forgotten by
the Radical and Liberal reformers who
are so anxious to multiply the species
In short, he is strange mixture of sen.
suality and integrity, of geniality and
bigotry, of patriotism and selfishness, Of
reverence for authority in the abstract
and impotence of it in the concrete, o.
the strongest common sense on some
subjects, and the most childish igno
rance on others. The same strange med
ley of qualities is characteristic to some
extent of the whole agricultural class
But in the yeoman it is intensified art
petriied partly by the absence of con
tradiction, partly by the sense of self
Importance, which comes of being
landed man. SATURDAY. ReUaeao.
A Grand Piece of Engineering.