Manor houses of the Tudor times are by no means uncommon in our English villages, but it should be pointed out that most of the mansions erected in what is called the “Elizabethan style” are really works of the time of James I., or that of Charles I.
We have now completed our task of describing the cottages and other architectural objects in English villages as they existed in bygone times, a few have escaped destruction down to our own day, but it is too much to be feared even these will, in a few years, have ceased to exist. The last half century, over which our personal recollection extends, has witnessed such a vast amount of destruction that it is difficult to believe in anything remaining at the end of another half century.
The fact is, railways, competition, machinery, the concentration of our “industrial classes” in large cities, the gradual extinction of the yeoman class, and the difficulty to obtain a bare subsistence as a small tenant farmer, have completely changed the condition of country life, and if we are ever again to have pretty villages they will be inhabited by ladies and gentlemen glad to escape occasionally from the toil of town life, and to recruit themselves in pretty cottages amidst charming scenery, pleasant gardens, and all the sweetness of a country life without its sordid toil, losses and vexations. We give a view of a home of this kind situated amidst the exquisite scenery of the Surrey hills as a pattern cottage of the future.
VARIETIES.
A Lady Physician in the Holy Land.
A Scottish clergyman tells us that when travelling recently in Palestine, not far from the fountains of Banias, he saw the Stars and Stripes fluttering in the breeze.
“Coming up,” he says, “we found a cluster of tents, and standing to welcome us an American lady who is doing a splendid work as a physician in Palestine and northern Syria. For eight months of the year she lives in tents, moving from Acohs in the south to Baalbek in the north. Having a full medical qualification, she is the only lady permitted to practise in Syria, and as she is something of a specialist in eye diseases, she draws patients from far and near.”
Who wants Work?
We cannot all be heroes,