e not to follow their excellent example. That which is not
fit to be uttered before women is not fit to be uttered at all; and it
is next to a proclamation, tolerating drunkenness and indecency, to send
women from the table the moment they have swallowed their food. The
practice has been ascribed to a desire to leave them to themselves; but
why should they be left to themselves? Their conversation is always the
most lively, while their persons are generally the most agreeable
objects. No: the plain truth is, that it is the love of the drink and of
the indecent talk that send women from the table; and it is a practice
which I have always abhorred. I like to see young men, especially,
follow them out of the room, and prefer their company to that of the
sots who are left behind.

74. Another mode of spending the leisure time is that of books. Rational
and well-informed companions may be still more instructive; but books
never annoy; they cost little; and they are always at hand, and ready at
your call. The sort of books must, in some degree, depend upon your
pursuit in life; but there are some books necessary to every one who
aims at the character of a well-informed man. I have slightly mentioned
HISTORY and Geography in the preceding letter; but I must here observe,
that, as to both these, you should begin with your own country, and make
yourself well acquainted, not only with its ancient state, but with the
_origin_ of all its principal institutions. To read of the battles which
it has fought, and of the intrigues by which one king or one minister
has succeeded another, is very little more profitable than the reading
of a romance. To understand well the history of the country, you should
first understand how it came to be divided into counties, hundreds, and
into parishes; how judges, sheriffs, and juries, first arose; to what
end they were all invented, and how the changes with respect to any of
them have been produced. But it is of particular consequence that you
ascertain the _state of the people_ in former times, which is to be
ascertained by _comparing the then price of labour with the then price
of food_. You hear enough, and you read enough, about the _glorious
wars_ in the reign of KING EDWARD the THIRD; and it is very proper that
those glories should be recorded and remembered; but you never read, in
the works of the historians, that, in that reign, a common labourer
earned threepence-halfpenny a day; and that a