les. Nor did their construction, with capital
raised chiefly abroad and punctually repaid, arrest the improvement or
the laying down of ordinary roads, to the extent of 4000 miles, between
1845 and 1875. In addition to this extensive opening-out of
communication by rail and road, the introduction of steamers on inland
waters and their employment as coasters and sea-going vessels, the
construction of telegraphs, and development of fisheries, of ship
building, of banking and other companies, and generally of trade and
industry, produced gradually a wide disturbance in the social economy
found by Mr. Laing. The expansion and prosperity of the towns, as well
as the more refined habits of life adopted by the clergy and the
officials of Government, were viewed by the yeomen farmers with a
jealousy that was undoubtedly the original cause of their present
radical proclivities, the old conservatism being relegated to towns,
contrary to the experience of other European countries, and particularly
to that of Great Britain, until the metaphorical three acres and a cow
were dangled before the eyes of its rural population.

Under all these influences, and we may include among them the effect of
a constantly-increasing number of travellers, equipped with the modern
appliances of civilization, and demanding accommodation and other
material comforts of a more and more superior character, the Robinson
Crusoe existence of the yeoman farmer, as depicted by Mr. Laing, has
suffered so much invasion that it has well-nigh disappeared.

In the matter of clothing, an assimilation to general, central European
dress has for years past been noticeable even in districts the most
remote, to the prejudice of home-spinning and weaving. Ancient silver
ornaments have been largely discarded by the women, and converted, first
into money, and eventually into articles of modern use or embellishment,
to an extent that now renders travellers more and more suspicious of the
Brummagem origin of the objects that remain for sale. And it is the same
with old furniture and with the multifarious knicknacks which travellers
less recent delighted to find in the country at reasonable prices.

The value of money has become more generally appreciated since Mr. Laing
admired the absence of all incentive to 'money-making and money-losing,'
and the previously unambitious character of the yeoman and his sons has
undergone a tolerably complete change since education has opene