and stowed away between the sugar and treacle. He
does not talk much, but he thinks the more. And now it strikes me that
conversation was not much cultivated in the villages of East Anglia in
1837, and yet there were splendid exceptions--on such evenings as when
the members of the Book Club met in our parlour, where the best tea
things were laid, and where a kindly mother in black silk and white shawl
and quakerish cap made tea; where an honoured father, who now sleeps far
away from the scene of his life-long labours, indulged in a genial
humour, which set at ease the shyest of his guests; and again, what a
splendid talk there was when the brethren in black from Beccles, from
Yarmouth, from Halesworth, gathered for fraternal purposes, perhaps once
a quarter, to smoke long pipes, to discuss metaphysics and politics, and
to puzzle their heads over divines and systems that have long ceased to
perplex the world. Few and simple were East Anglian annals then. It was
seldom the London coach, the Yarmouth Mail and Telegraph brought a
cockney down to astonish us with his pert ways and peculiar talk. Life
was slow, but it was kindly, nevertheless. There was no fear of
bacteria, nor of poison in the pot, nor of the ills of bad drainage. We
were poor, but honest. Are we better now?

In 1837 the railways which unite the country under the title of the Great
Eastern had not come into existence.

All is changed in East Anglia except the boys. "You have seen a good
many changes in your time," said the young curate to the old village
clerk. "Yes," was the reply; "everything is changed except the boys, and
they're allus the same." I fear the boys are as troublesome as
ever--perhaps a little more so now, when you cannot touch them with a
stick, which any one might do years ago. When we caught a boy up to
mischief a stick did a deal of good in the good old times that are gone
never to return.

In connection with literature one naturally turns to the Bungay Printing
Press, at the head of which was John Childs, who assembled round his
hospitable board at Bungay many celebrated people, and to whom at a later
period Daniel O'Connell paid a visit. It was Childs who gave to the poor
student cheap editions of standard works such as Burke and Gibbon and
Bacon. It was he who went to Ipswich Gaol rather than pay Church Rates.
It was he who was one of the first to attack the Bible printing monopoly,
and thus to flood the land with chea