like this, to a people who have been, and will be yet, the hope and
glory of the land.



CHAPTER XX.



"Poor Tom's a-cold! Who gives anything to poor Tom?"
--King Lear.

One sometimes meets with remarkable differences of condition in the
households of poor folk, which stand side by side in the same
street. I am not speaking of the uncertain shelters of those who
struggle upon the skirts of civilisation, in careless, uncared-for
wretchedness, without settled homes, or regular occupation,--the
miserable camp followers of life's warfare,--living habitually from
hand to mouth, in a reckless wrestle with the world, for mere
existence. I do not mean these, but the households of our common
working people. Amongst the latter one sometimes meets with striking
differences, in cleanliness, furniture, manners, intellectual
acquirements, and that delicate compound of mental elements called
taste. Even in families whose earnings have been equal in the past,
and who are just now subject alike to the same pinch of adversity,
these disparities are sometimes very great. And, although there are
cases in which the immediate causes of these differences are evident
enough in the habits of the people, yet, in others, the causes are
so obscure, that the wisest observer would be most careful in
judging respecting them. I saw an example of this in a little bye-