The record-union., 1893-04-29

citul sketch, painting or curious model,
the result of emulation to win prizes for
Invention IN new processes, or for unique
and original designs in modelling and
decoration. The murderous truck"
system is unknown in England, as it
should be in America, and every penny
due every man is paid him each Saturday
noon. We are very fond, about election
time, OF telling our workmen what lucky
dogs they are. | wish they truly pos
sessed the home comfort and pleasant en-
VIronment that English work kmen's VIII
lagos almost universally disclose.
Another and most interesting type of
villages and village life may be found in
the region comprised in southwestern
Warwlckshire, Northern Gloucestershire,
Eastern Heretordshire and Southern Wor-
cestershire, between the towns of STRAIT
ford-on- Avon, Hereford, Worcester and
Gloucester. The antiquity of most of
these villages is as great, and their char
acterlstlcs as distinctive as those of the
stone hamlets of Cumberland. Like the
latter most are OF stone and iron from 800
TO 800 years old. Here is everything Gu
rlous and ancient in old oak doors and
hinges, tancltul chimney-pieces, massive
oak Hntels, doors and baIustrades, null
loned windows and paneled rooms.
w hen the habltations are not of stone
they are still the more picturesque an
cient Tudor, half-tim bered houses. These,
III their gables, with crowning pinnacles,
their odd porches, small but massive
doors, mullioned windows and huge
chlmneys, overhanging stories and Jum-
ples OF projecting windows, are no less
quaint and curious than their interiors,
with their spacious, loW-ceilinged rooms
paneled with oak of ebon blacknesS,
often elaborately carved and ornamented,
and with passages, hooks, inches, cup
boards and presses, bewildering in ar
rangement and number.
Unless one has really wandered in
rock k-buttressed old Cornwall it is hard
TO believe that outside the picturesque
coastWlse fishing hamlets there is such a
thing as characteristic village life. To
the casual observer from the railway
train the whole face of the land seems
torn and Scared as if by tremendous ele-
mental struggles. a myriad kissing
fragments OF exploded planets, hurled in
awful upper rain upon its face, could have
lett no more unsightly hurts. But it is
full of enhancing hidden rocks, where
sloplng from ragged moorlands, are beau
teous little valleys with ample farms, les
senlng into timer checkers of hedge and
lane-broidered fields and these into
messy old hamlets, where the white
Wesleyan chapel and the Norman-tow-
cred parish church are the only two
structures showing through a wealth of
trees, but where are curious old homes,
and always bawling moorland stream
turning the gray, huge wheel of some
trembling old mill.
Here, miles, perhaps, from their ''paird-
ner" work below grass in the mines
on the moors, live swartby "Coden
lcousin) jack" with scores of cotter la
borers, upon the farms. Wherever these
village cottages are their walls are of
everlasting stone, embowered in brilliant
Cornish creepers and roses, with cement
floors, and matched roofs subject to in
termlnable repairs from onslaughts of
scores OF busy sparrows, tiny miners
themselves, endlessly sinking shafts and
drilling "crosscuts' and "levels'' in the
soft and yielding straw. There is one
room below, sometimes two, and half
story garret beneath the thatch. There
is only front door. A window is at
either side of this, and sometimes di-
rectly above these tiny panes to light the
garret. Zach cottage is provided at the
end or back with an open fireplace in the
center, sort OF range at one side covered
with brass ornaments which the house
wife is endlessly polishing with growder
while at the other side is the ''ungconer''
with "heps," or upper and under doors,
for storing faggots or furze for fuel.
the furniture, though scant, is honest
and useful. At the fireplace are the
brands" triangular iron on legs on
which, over the GOALS, the kettles boil.
IL,
the fish or meat, when they can be luck
lily had, are ''scrowled" or grilled. There
are, perhaps, four chairs, singularly
enough with solid mahogany frames, but
the seats are of painted pine and are
waxed weekly. These are for ''best' and
all the best. For everyday use one or
two firms" or rude benches, are pro-
vided. The single table is of pine, an un-
painted side for daily use, and scrubbed
daily, and painted side for Sunday.
The table ware is something startling in
cheap goods, for the gypsy hawkers
frequent Cornwall. and each member
of the family is provided with a real
"chany" cup and saucer with q gorgeous
gilt band.
For his class the Cornish villager is a
generous liver. The young folk have an
unusual fund of games distinctive of
Cornwall; marriages provide extraor-
dinary festivals; the dead are "watched''
from decease to burial, and funerals pro-
vide subdued diversions with heroic
teasts leaping, wrestling, running,
cricket and putting the stone," are the
principal amusements of youths and
men, IN which they excel, and their
endeared hobgoblins and "buccaboos, !"
which Wesley and Whitfield, along with
the railways and telegraph, were never
able to lay" draw these sturdy Cornish
villagers closer together around the flash
ing village smithy forge, the Cornish
mans chief place of evening resort or
within the home-glow of their blazing
ingle-nooks, during the long winter
nights when the cruel fogs pound in over
the moors from the seething channel. or
the tempests howl across the dreary,
shuddering moors.
Practically all English village folk are
laborers, whether operatives, shepherds,
wagoners, thatchers, drainers, or COM
mon field laborers, just as they have been
for hundreds of years. There may be
publican or innkeeper, a shopkeeper
who is postmaster or postmistress. car
penter, who is often painter under
taker, verger and gravedigger in one,
baker, tailor, a blacksmith and
poacher, TOR the latter is in every hamlet
in Britain, all great oracles in their way.
But three families of quality, and fire.
quently not that many, are known-those
OF the lord OF the manor or the squire the
rector or the curate and the schoolmaster.
for the doctor is always summoned from
a near city or town.
English village life is therefore found
to lie within wonderfully close hori-
zon. have been much with these folk
IN their labor, their diversions and their
homes. After looking at them long and
earnestly with my own eyes | have tried
TO get, as nearly as possible, into their
personal environment, and then look out
OF the windows OF their minds and their
habitations upon the everyday world
about them. In this way a good deal
that is not hopeless and much that is
gratifying can be discerned. 1t is cer-
tainly true that an infinitely higher
standard of life and living is enjoyed than
in the good old days. whose departure
the wise writers SO bitterly deplore.
Universal education has certainly
caused universal discomfort. But | do
not think it carries from youth to old
or RU tho l. % OIL