Memoirs of a Surrey Labourer

hall be aware only of the quiet lapse of time as the seasons steal over him, and leave him older, or as the progress of public events is dimly reflected in occasional scraps of his

rden and his cottage. On Saturday afternoons he journeyed into the town to get a shave and do his shopping; on Sunday evenings he generally

a was not loud enough, incredible though that may seem. As a peasant, Bettesworth had a theory which I have often heard him affirm, that, for farmers to prosper, "bread never ought to be no less than a shillin' a gallon," so that I expected to hear him at least talk of "fiscal reform." But he never did. The proposal was months old when I at last broached the subject to him, and all he said was, "Oh dear! we don't want no taxes on food!" as if he had never heard that such a thing was projected. And it is my firm belief that to the day of his death he

k of his on this subject, which shows him taking not quite a parochial view of the situation. He did not approve of war. Several years previously, at the outbreak of the S

all they reserves called out. There never no

retaining pay, had been wont to undersell the civilian workm

g he asked, "Any news of the war, sir?" and listened gravely to what could be told. But he did not so much think as feel about it all. He knew nothing, cared nothing, about the policy which had led up to hostilities; he was too ill-informed to be infected by the raw imperialism of the day; his attitude was simply "national." "Our country"-that was h

f our many talks on the subject I seem to have preserved only one,

disastrous news from the seat of war, and was letting off his dismay in exclamatory fashion. "Six h

ly it means that t

, "Ah, prisoners

laim. "Burnt? No, no!

burns 'em,

tening to other men's talk. He used, as we know, to go to the public-house on Sunday evenings "to get enlightenment to the mind;" and there is me