To him replied a righteously indignant native of the same village, "I've 'eard as 'ow the English army 'ave killed ten thousand Durvishers (Dervishes)."
"Bedad!" answered his friend, "there won't be many left in Durbysher if they goes on a-killin' un much longer."
Another story lately told me in the same village was as follows:--
An old lady went to the stores to buy candles, and was astonished to find that owing to the Spanish-American war "candles was riz."
"Get along!" she indignantly exclaimed. "Don't tell me they fights by candlelight"
One of the cheeriest fellows that ever worked for us was a carter called Trinder. He was the father of twenty-one children--by the same wife. He never seemed to be worried in the slightest degree by domestic affairs, and was always happy and healthy and gay. This man's wages would be about twelve shillings a week: not a very large sum for a man with a score of children. Then it must be remembered that the boys would go off to work in the fields at a very early age, and by the time they were ten years old they would be keeping themselves. A large family like this would not have the crushing effect on the labouring man that it has on the poor curate or city clerk. Nevertheless, one cannot help looking upon the man as a kind of hero, when one considers the enormous number of grandchildren and descendants he will have. On being asked the other day how he had contrived to maintain such a quiverful, he answered, "I've always managed to get along all right so far; I never wanted for vittals, sir, anyhow." This was all the information he would give.
Talking of "vittals," the only meat the labouring man usually indulges in is bacon. His breakfast consists of bread and butter, and either tea or cocoa. For his dinner he relies on bread and bacon, occasionally only bread and cheese. In the winter he is home by five, and once more has tea, or cocoa, or beer. Coffee is very seldom seen in the cottages. During the short days there is nothing to do but go to bed in the evening, unless a walk of over a mile to the village inn is considered worth the trouble. But being tired and leg weary, a long walk does not usually appeal to the men after their evening meal; so to bed is the order of the day,--and, thank Heaven! "the sleep of a labouring man is sweet." In the longer days of spring and summer there is plenty to do in the allotments; and on the whole the allotments acts have been a great blessing to the labourers.
It is during the three winter months that penny readings and smoking concerts are so much appreciated in the country. Too much cannot be done in this way to brighten the life of the village during the cold, dark days of December and January, for the labouring man hates reading above all things.
Perhaps the fact that these simple folk do not read the newspapers, or only read those parts in which they have a direct interest--such as paragraphs indulging in socialistic castles in the air--has its advantages, inasmuch as it allows their common sense full play in all other matters, unhampered as it is (except in this one weak point of socialism) by the prejudices of the day. So that if one wanted to get an unprejudiced opinion on some great question of right or wrong, in the consideration of which common sense alone was required--such a question, for instance, as is occasionally cropping up in these times in our foreign policy--one would have to go to the very best men in the country, namely, those amongst the educated classes who think for themselves, or to men of the so-called lowest strata of society, such as these honest Cotswold labourers; because there is scarcely one man in ten among the reading public who is not biassed and confused by the manifold contradictions and political claptrap of the daily papers, and led away by side issues from a clear understanding of the rights of every case. Our free press is doubtless a grand institution. As with individuals, however, so ought it to be with nations. Let us, in our criticisms of the policy of those who watch over the destinies of other countries, whilst firmly upholding our rights, strictly adhere to the principle of noblesse oblige. The press is every day becoming more and more powerful for good or evil; its influence on men's minds has become so marked that it may with truth be said that the press rules public opinion rather than that public opinion rules the press. But the writers of the day will only fulfil their destiny aright by approaching every question in a broad and tolerant spirit, and by a firm reliance, in spite of the prejudices of the moment, on the ancient faith of noblesse oblige. However, the unanimity recently shown by the press in upholding our rights at Fashoda was absolutely splendid.