d regulations;
but though the wisdom of Solomon may administer justice in a dispute,
it is impossible to ensure a really peaceful solution that will
endure.

Sometimes feuds, originating in such or similar causes, were
maintained for years by neighbours living with only a 9-inch party
wall between them, and daily meetings outside, to the extent of not
even "passing the time of day." At last, however, in a day of distress
to one, the heart of the unafflicted other would melt, and after an
offer of help, or actual assistance, kind relations would be once more
established. Or a peace offering, in the shape of a dish of good
pig-meat, sent over with a kind message, would restore more genial
conditions, and they would return to happy and neighbourly
familiarity.

I once employed an old Dorset labourer, a tall, slim, aristocratic
figure, with an elegant, refined nose to match; he bore the well-known
name of an ancient and distinguished Dorset family, and I have no
doubt was well descended. He was decidedly a canny, not to say crafty,
man. I gave him a holiday at Whitsuntide to visit his old home, but he
overran the time agreed upon and returned some days late. Before I
could begin the rebuke I proposed to administer, he produced a
charming photograph of a ruined abbey near his old locality, and
handed it to me as a present. "I thought upon you, master, while I was
away, and knowing as you was fond of ancient things I've brought you
this picture." I was completely disarmed, and the rebuke had to be
postponed _sine die_.

As I was talking one day to my bailiff--one of the men who lived a
mile away standing near--he said: "Tom, here, is always the first man
to arrive in the morning; I have never known him to be late." I
congratulated Tom, and asked what time he went to bed: "Oh, about
seven o'clock!" He was, in fact, a lonely old bachelor, and, being "no
scholard," it saved lights and firing to be early to bed.

This man, like many villagers, had very vague ideas of geography. To
save the trouble of cooking, he lived largely on American tinned beef,
and got chaffed about it by his fellow-workers. "How be you getting on
with the 'Merican biff?" Tom was asked. "Oh," said he, "never no more
'Merican biff for me." "How's that, Tom?" "Why, the other day I found
a trouser-button in it!" The point of this story lies in the fact that
the Russo-Turkish war was proceeding at the time. _Tempora mutantur_,
we were then encouraging Tur