at ten years old. They tell us that this system, to some extent, still
survives in China. In all fundamental points such is the creed of the
agricultural race of our own day. Circumstances have, no doubt, had
something to do with the production and elaboration of such a faith. In
no other profession do the sons and the daughters remain so long, and so
naturally, under the parental roof. The growth of half-a-dozen strong
sons was a matter of self-congratulation, for each as he came to man's
estate took the place of a labourer, and so reduced the
money-expenditure. The daughters worked in the dairy, and did not
hesitate to milk occasionally, or, at least, to labour in the hayfield.
They spun, too, the home-made stuffs in which all the family were
clothed. A man's children were his servants. They could not stir a step
without his permission. Obedience and reverence to the parent was the
first and greatest of all virtues. Its influence was to extend through
life, and through the whole social system. They were to choose the wife
or the husband approved of at home. At thirty, perhaps, the more
fortunate of the sons were placed on farms of their own nominally, but
still really under the father's control. They dared not plough or sow
except in the way that he approved. Their expenditure was strictly
regulated by his orders. This lasted till his death, which might not
take place for another twenty years. At the present moment I could point
out ten or twelve such cases, where men of thirty or forty are in farms,
and to all appearance perfectly free and independent, and yet as
completely under the parental thumb as they were at ten years old. Why
do they not throw off the burden? Because they have imbibed the same
creed, and intend to carry it out in their own persons. These men, if
they think thus of their own offspring, cannot be expected to be more
tender towards the lower class around them. They did at one time, and
some still wish to, extend the same system to the labouring population.
As there was in those days little or no work for a man but upon a farm,
and as the cottages were chiefly in the hands of the farmers, there was
plenty of opportunity for carrying out these ideas. The old method of
poor relief gave another handle. They did not want only to indulge in
tyranny; what they did was to rule the labouring poor in the same way as
they did their own children--nothing more nor less. These labouring men,
like his own childr