an who takes the lead, and
sit, with doors and windows shut, crammed together to pray and listen to
others pray. Any of them who wishes can, as it were, ascend the pulpit
here. This is why in so many parishes the pews of the parish church are
comparatively empty so far as agricultural labourers are concerned. The
best of clergymen must fail to fill them under such disadvantages.

It is very difficult not only for the clergyman, but for others who wish
to improve the condition of the labourer, to reach him. Better cottages
are, of course, a most effectual way, but it is not in the power of
every one to confer so substantial a benefit. Perhaps one of the best
means devised has been that of cottage flower-shows. These are, of
course, not confined to flowers; in fact, the principal part of such
shows consists of table vegetables and fruit. By rigidly excluding all
gardeners, and all persons not strictly cottage people, the very best
results have often been arrived at in this way. For if there is one
thing in which the labourer takes an interest it is his garden and his
allotment. To offer him prizes for the finest productions of his garden
touches the most sensitive part of his moral organisation. It is
wonderful what an amount of emulation these prizes excite--emulation not
so much for the value of the prize as for the distinction. These
competitions tend besides to provide him with a better class of food,
for he depends largely upon vegetables.

There is nothing connected with the condition of the agricultural poor
that is better worth the attention of improvers than the style of
cookery pursued in these cottages. A more wretched cookery probably does
not exist on the face of the earth. The soddened cabbage is typical of
the whole thing. Since higher wages have come in it has become possible
for the labourer in many cases to provide himself with better food, such
as mutton--the cheap parts--more bacon, pork, and so on; but the women
do not know how to make the most of it. It is very difficult to lay down
a way in which this defect may be remedied; for there is nothing a man,
let him be never so poor, so deeply resents as an inspection of the
contents of his pot. He would sooner eat half-raw bacon than have the
teaching forced on him--how to make savoury meals of the simple
provisions within his reach; nor can he be blamed for this sturdy
independent feeling. Possibly the establishment of schools of cookery in
villages mi