The daily morning journal and courier., 1901-08-03

Years s-Thc Annual Horticultural
 show-Mitigntion of the Caste spirit
 --Rider Haggard's "Back to the
 Lnnd"--The squire--Dccorntivo Gar
 dening.
 London, July "A.
 A typical English village. Repeated visits extending back over long pe- riod have made the place as dear and familiar as q second home, Yet in de- scribing it no names vii be given, not even the name of the village itself, for the object is, not to draw attention to this one place in particular, but to use this one little spot in the beautiful country districts of old England as an illustration of English village life in general with all it's charms, all it's idiosyncracies, all it's drawbacks, but with special reference to the changes brought about in it ill the last twenty five years. The topic is frcshened and vivified by a recent visit to the Annual Horticultural Show. This in itself has greatly improved upon what it used to be, and the very fact of such a show being an annual event in a place i'll which there is little to see excepting the beauties of nature and little to do beyond the daily hum-drum of cultivat- ing the land, has had a distinctly up- lifting and broadening influence upon all classes, no less upon the Well-to-do than upon the laborer and his family.
 Since the first flower show twenty years have told their story of storm and shine, and when I first saw it eighteen years ago it was only an ex- pertinent, with not much promise of either long life or great usefulness. single small tent was the only shelter from the suns rays or the treacherous clouds of this changeful English eli mate. Very hard did it seem to get the unsophisticated villagers to under stand what entries were to be made, how exhibits were to be classified, as well show impossible it was for every exhibitor to get the first prize. lnno- vations of any kind have a hard row to hoe in England. This is even more noticeable in the local customs of Vil- lage life than in the slow-going way in which business is done in the cen- ters of trade. But one thing decidedly favorable to those horticultural eXh1b- its was the innate passion of the coun- try laborer for cultivating a garden patch and the corresponding fondness of his better half for flowers. There is scarcely man who hasn't his little allotment of land. It generally goes in with the small rent he pays for his dwelling, but if it doesn't attach to his house he is sure to get it some of hiS 1Gnp days work he will trudge a mile to spend an hour or so of joyful labor in his own little garden patch. Similarly too, will the good housewife be devoted to the little flower garden she usually has at her front door. Such bright, tasteful little enclosures these are, and after the eye he delighted itself with the profusion of flowers outside the cottage, one may then look at the win dowa and invariably find that these, too. are adorned enticingly in the same way.
 Flowers in every window and flowers iii front of nearly every cottage, seems to be the rule in these trim, quiet country places of old England. Nat 'Grally, therefore, these horticultural shows, in seeking room for themselves in the English villages, found con genial soil in the popular taste. The difficulties were all in the business and social department. How to bring the elow-going people to time, how to make them understand and how to blend the classes in a social way so that the gen. try should not be too ostentatiously patronizing toward the laborer and the laborer not too obsequious or bashful before the gentry? These were the problems, and throughout the length and breadth of the land time and pa tience have so successfully solved these problems that the annual flower show, with its prizes for gardening and cook ingaaand table decoration, besides the srtfemiums which encourage horticulture and with it's one day in the year when gentry and common folk all mingle to- gether in the midst of large gleaming tents topped off by flags, is now the established thing everywhere and is necessarily everywhere having a most happy effect.
 Inevitably at these village exhibitions there will be in evidence what an American, at first thought, would look upon as the remains of an odious caste spirit. The advance schedule will have duly notified the laborer which is his class. and tradesmen and others to which classes they belong. But this IS really in the laborers interest. One may be as surely outclassed in culti- vating turnips or roses as in entering the ring for prize fight and every one will see that in competition with the squire at the Hall. who has plenty of leisure and plenty of help, or even with the we'll to-do tradesmen, this would be exactly the predicament of the farm laborer And as to the caste spirit of which one used to see so much in these out of the way places, my observation is that it is yielding gracefully to common sense and the trend of events. One does not find now ffle lowing and scraping to superiors that was comon in this typical Eng fish village twenty years ago, and real- lv if this custom were still in vogue, If would seem more incongruous than if ,,sed to. because the clas who former 1v yielded this homage are so much better looking than they were; not onlv better dressed and more cleanly and tidy, but with a new look of in telligence on their faces due, no doubt. to what through the years the excellent village school has been doing for them.
 And while the lower orders are be-