lat_ that he could get in
the purchase of the most expensive kinds of employment, while she and the
children were compelled to content themselves with such cheap and coarse
activity as dragging an old wagon round and round in a small field which a
kind-hearted neighbor permitted them to use for the purpose. I afterward
saw this improvident husband and unnatural father. He had just squandered
all the money he had been able to beg or borrow in buying six tickets,
which entitled the holder to that many days' employment in pitching hay
into a barn. A week later I met him again. He was broken in health, his
limbs trembled, his walk was an uncertain shuffle. Clearly he was
suffering from overwork. As I paused by the wayside to speak to him a
wagon loaded with hay was passing. He fixed his eyes upon it with a
hungry, wolfish glare, clutched a pitchfork and leaned eagerly forward,
watching the vanishing wagon with breathless attention and heedless of my
salutation. That night he was arrested, streaming with perspiration, in
the unlawful act of unloading that hay and putting it into its owner's
barn. He was tried, convicted and sentenced to six months' detention in
the House of Indolence.

The whole country is infested by a class of criminal vagrants known as
_strambaltis_, or, as we should say, "tramps." These persons prowl about
among the farms and villages begging for work in the name of charity.
Sometimes they travel in groups, as many as a dozen together, and then the
farmer dares not refuse them; and before he can notify the constabulary
they will have performed a great deal of the most useful labor that they
can find to do and escaped without paying a _rylat_. One trustworthy
agriculturist assured me that his losses in one year from these
depredations amounted to no less a sum than seven hundred _balukan_! On
nearly all the larger and more isolated farms a strong force of guards is
maintained during the greater part of the year to prevent these outrages,
but they are frequently overpowered, and sometimes prove unfaithful to
their trust by themselves working secretly by night.

The Golampi priesthood has always denounced overwork as a deadly sin, and
declared useless and apparently harmless work, such as carrying water from
the river and letting it flow in again, a distinct violation of the divine
law, in which, however, I could never find any reference to the matter;
but there has recently risen a sect which holds that al