year and as he was very lame, she was obliged to do the greatest part of the work. On his death she disposed of the stock, &c.; and after paying all his debts and funeral expenses, she had ten pounds remaining, which she placed in the hands of her landlord: the interest of this money pays her rent. When she was able to reap in harvest, she earned a little more money; yet, notwithstanding her present scanty income, she has no thoughts of applying to the parish. She receives no assistance whatever from her friends. diet is hasty pudding, milk, butter, and potatoes. She was brought up in the most frugal manner; and she feels no inconvenience from living so abstemiously. She never had a tea pot in her house, at any time of her life.

13. The Sunderland shepherd.

Her common

An old man, who is a shepherd (in 1796) on Sunderland common, has brought up ten children by his own labour; without receiving any assistance from the parish, or from any body. To some of his boys he has given a decent education. He has only four children living. His earnings have generally been five or six shillings a week; and he has chiefly been employed in husbandry.

14. The Westmoreland labourer.

A labourer near Kendal, about twenty-nine years of age, who has a wife and three children, says, (in 1796,) that he does not spend a shilling in an alehouse, in the whole year.

15. The master chimneysweeper.

The following pleasing account of a respectable master chimneysweeper, was written in the year 1797, by sir Thomas Bernard.

"Mr. David Porter, a master chimneysweeper in London, has, from the age of eighteen, lost few opportunities of improving either his mind, or his fortune, He has brought up and maintained his family, with credit and character. Being asked how he had succeeded so well in business, he answered: By never having an idle hour, or an idle guinea.' In the first year he began business, finding no employment in the summer, he went into Lincolnshire, where he was known, and worked at harvest work; and brought home, at the end of harvest, something handsome. When he ad-vanced a little further in life, and had some money beforehand, he always employed that money to great advantage.

His boys are kindly treated, and well kept: and, though they have the usual sooty appearance on weekdays, they are cleaned, and made neat, on Saturday night, or early on Sunday morning; and they regularly attend Divine service at church, on Sunday. He does not allow them to be employed, or sent out, on the Lord's day. I lately made him an unexpected visit, in order to see them at their Sunday dinner : he had just refused to send two of them to the house of one of his best customers, to do something at the kitchen chimney. I had very great pleasure in seeing his journeymen and boys sitting down to a good meal of boiled mutton, and rice pudding, served up in a very cleanly and comfortable manner. Their behaviour was decent, orderly, and cheerful. In proof of the good effects of his attention to them, I have to add, that, in thirtytwo years, he has lost only two apprentices by death: and that none of them ever had any symptoms of the dreadful disease called the chimneysweeper's cancer; a disorder so common and so fatal to the climbing boys,

in consequence of their being too seldom washed, and cleaned of the soot, and too thinly clad to resist the cold."

16. The good mother.

Joanna Martin, the wife of a day-labourer at Huntspill, in the northern part of Somersetshire, was left a widow with six young children, and not a shilling in the world to feed them with. The parish officers had no objection to receive the children into the poor-house : but the good mother would not part with them; and determined to depend upon nothing but Providence, and her own activity, for the support of her numerous family. "For many a long month," said she, "have I risen daily at two o'clock in the morning; done what was needful for the children; gone eight or ten miles, on foot, to a market, with a large basket of pottery ware on my head; sold it, and returned with the profits before noon." By this hard labour, Joanna, in the course of a year, heaped up the sum of one guinea and a half; when, being under the necessity of quitting the cottage. in which she lived, she resolved to build one for herself. Being, as she said, a famous architect, and a very good workman, she did great part of the work with her own hands. "Well," said she to some gentlemen, who, when she was far advanced in life, were making inquiries respecting her history, "with the assistance of a good God, I was able at last to finish my cottage; which, though I say it myself, is a very tight little place. And after some time, having saved another trifle, I bought the old cart I am now in; and the little pony you see, with which, though I gave only half a guinea for her, I would not part, for the best fifty shillings that

ever were told. I wanted the cart and pony ill enough, for what with smartish work, and not very good living, I began to find my legs fail; and that I could not walk thirty miles a day so well, as I walked them twenty years ago. With these, however, I am able to carry pottery to the different market-towns round about, and drive a pretty brisk trade. To be sure I am not very rich; but what I have, is all of my own getting. I never begged a halfpenny of any one; I brought up my children without the help of the overseers; and I can now maintain myself, without being obliged to them."

17. The industrious children.

In a comfortable cottage, on lord Winchelsea's estate, in Rutlandshire, a day-labourer, in the year 1799, was bringing up, and supporting nine children; all of them healthy, well fed, clean, and neatly dressed. One of them, a little girl, under four years of age, was asked if "No," said she; "I am too little : "Her sister," said the mother, pointing between five and six years of age, spins very well. She got a prize, this year, for spinning; and brought home a premium, of the value of six shillings, in clothing."

she could spin.

but I

can knit."

to another girl,

66

18. The respectable cottager.

Mr. Swan, of Wolvercot, speaks (in 1801) of one of his neighbours, in the following honourable terms: Joseph Smith rents of me an acre of meadow, which he has held for twenty years. He has reared eight children, and buried three; and has never received the smallest assistance from the parish. He is now possessed of live stock worth at least seventy pounds; and

he lately purchased the cottage which he lives in, and the one adjoining it. He keeps, with his meadow and the common, two hardy cows; rears a calf or two every year; and has a good stock of poultry and pigs, supplied with food by the refuse of his dairy, and wellmanaged garden. His cows are supported, part of the hard winters, at a very small expense, in a straw-yard. He is the most constant and steady labourer in the parish and in the ten years I have lived here, he has never lost a day's work from drunkenness, or idleness; or from the hinderance of his own little concerns, to which his evenings and mornings, and a part of his wife's time, are devoted."

19. The bricklayer's cottage.

The following account was written in 1801.

A little beyond the fifty-first milestone, on the road from London to Cambridge, on a piece of land called Lord's waste, stands a very neat cottage. It is built of clay, and is two stories high; with a flat tiled roof. The garden is surrounded with willows and poplars. Part of it is enclosed by a dead fence, upon a bank; part by a mud wall, and with paling in front. The cottage was built by Joseph Austin. He is by trade, a bricklayer. He has a brother and two half brothers, at little Shelford, in the county of Cambridge; all of whom follow the same trade. Before he built his

"I used," said he,

:

house, he lived with his brother. "often to come and look at this spot; and thought what a nice place it would be for building a house and as soon as I got to sleep of a night, I used to begin building." At length, he applied to the manor court, and got leave to build. He used to work at his house, when