or old gal?... They sims to think nobody
en't right 'xcep' jest theirselves--as if we poor people could live an'
go on same as they do. They can 'ave their drink at 'ome, and their
music, but where be we to go to if they shuts up the 'ouses?" Such were
the remarks I heard over and over again. It seemed to the poor that
there were to be no more cakes and ale, because Malvolio was virtuous,
or because their own manners were not refined enough.

In the light of subsequent political events I am prepared to believe
that some of this popular indignation was engineered from the
public-houses. But I do not think it required much engineering. It
sounded spontaneous at the time, and considering how the villagers are
placed, their resentment was not unnatural. As I have said, the
public-house has its value in their scheme of living. They have no means
of enjoying themselves at home, no room in their cottages for
entertaining friends, and they may well ask what they are to do if the
public-houses are closed to them.

One thing, at least, is sure. If the ordinary village inn were nothing
but the foul drink-shop which its enemies allege, if all that it
provided was an irresistible temptation to depravity, the majority of
the people who resort to it now would very soon leave it alone. And the
same is true of the little lowly places in the town. In the third
chapter I mentioned how the village women, with their men-folk and
their children, too--until the recent Act of Parliament shut the
children out--would make a Saturday-night call at some public-house
before going home from the weekly shopping expedition. But these are the
reverse of bad women. They are honest and self-respecting mothers of
families; women obviously innocent of anything approaching intemperance.
I have seen them chatting outside a public-house door, and then
smilingly pushing it open and going in, as happily unconscious of evil
as if they were going to a mothers' meeting. They see no harm in it.
They are away from home, they have far to go, and they want refreshment.
But it is perfectly certain that most of them would rather drop than
enter such places--for they are not afraid of fatigue--if there were
risk of anything really wrong within. The labouring-class woman, as
already explained, takes no hurt from a frank style of talk. She is not
squeamish, but she has a very strong sense of her own honour; and if you
remember how keen is the village appetite for scandal,