ror, however
illustrated or adorned, or however capable of being brilliantly defended
in speech or pamphlet, is sure always with him to take the form of
pecuniary loss. My superior in the agency--Mr. Ross, a good and
honourable-minded man, of sense and experience--was admirably fitted for
calculations of this kind; and I learned, both in his behalf, and from
the pleasure which I derived from the exercise, to take no little
interest in them also. It was agreeable to mark the moral effects of a
well-conducted agency such as his. However humbly honesty and good sense
may be rated in the great world generally, they always, when united,
bear premium in a judiciously managed bank office. It was interesting
enough, too, to see quiet silent men, like "honest Farmer Flamburgh,"
getting wealthy, mainly because, though void of display, they were not
wanting in integrity and judgment; and clever unscrupulous fellows, like
"Ephraim Jenkinson," who "spoke to good purpose," becoming poor, very
much because, with all their smartness, they lacked sense and principle.
It was worthy of being noted, too, that in looking around from my
peculiar point of view on the agricultural classes, I found the farmers,
on really good farms, usually thriving, if not themselves in fault,
however high their rents; and that, on the other hand, farmers on
sterile farms were _not_ thriving, however moderate the demands of the
landlord. It was more melancholy, but not less instructive, to learn,
from authorities whose evidence could not be questioned--bills paid by
small instalments, or lying under protest--that the small-farm system,
so excellent in a past age, was getting rather unsuited for the
energetic competition of the present one; and that the _small_
farmers--a comparatively comfortable class some sixty or eighty years
before, who used to give dowries to their daughters, and leave
well-stocked farms to their sons--were falling into straitened
circumstances, and becoming, however respectable elsewhere, not very
good men in the bank. It was interesting, too, to mark the character
and capabilities of the various branches of trade carried on in the
place--how the business of its shopkeepers fell always into a very few
hands, leaving to the greater number, possessed, apparently, of the same
advantages as their thriving compeers, only a mere show of custom--how
precarious in its nature the fishing trade always is, especially the
herring fishery, not more fr