_he'd_ ha' done it." It was surprising to me to
hear a respectable mother speculate as to how her own son would behave
in such a case, or contemplate even the possibility of his being guilty
of murder; and I thought it all too practical a way of considering the
subject. But it revealed how appallingly real such things may be to
people who, as I tried to show farther back, have reason to feel a
little like an alien race under our middle-class law. Very often one may
discern this personal or practical point of view in their
sensationalism: they indulge it chiefly for the sake of excitement, but
with a side glance at the bearing which the issue may have upon their
own affairs. In a foul case which was dealt with under the Criminal Law
Amendment Act, large numbers of our cottage women flocked to the town
to hear the trial, attracted partly by the hope of sensation, of course,
but also very largely actuated by a sentiment of revenge against the
offender; for here the safety of their own young daughters was involved.

Be this as it may, still it is true that the two sources I have
mentioned--namely, the sensational news in the papers and the distresses
and misdemeanours in the village itself--supply practically all that the
average cottager gets to touch his sentiments and emotions into life;
and it is plain enough that from neither of these sources, even when
supplemented by a fine traditional family life, can a very desirable
spiritual nourishment be obtained. "Real" enough the fare is, in all
conscience; but, as usual with realities of that sort, it wants
choiceness. It provides plenty of objects for compassion, for anxiety,
for contempt, for ridicule even, but very little for emulation, for
reverence. The sentiments of admiration and chivalry, the enthusiastic
emotions, are hardly ever aroused in man or woman, boy or girl, in the
village. Nothing occurs in the natural course to bring what is called
"good form" into notice and make it attractive, and at the same time the
means of bringing this about by art demand more money, more leisure and
seclusion, more book-learning too, than the average labourer can obtain.
In the middle-classes this is not the case. It is true that the
middle-classes have little to boast of in this respect, but generous
ideas of modesty and reverence, and of "playing the game," and of public
duty, and of respect for womanhood, have at least a chance of spreading
amongst boys and girls, in households