acts, no vestries, no schools of any kind. The streets are never
cleaned; every man lights his own house; nor does any one know
anything except his business.

[Picture: Borrow's Birthplace]

More than this, at Wodgate, a factory or large establishment of any
kind is unknown. Here Labour reigns supreme. Its division, indeed,
is favoured by their manners, but the interference or influence of
mere capital is instantly resisted.

The business of Wodgate is carried on by master workmen in their own
houses, each of whom possess an unlimited number of what they call
apprentices, by whom their affairs are principally conducted, and
whom they treat as the Mamlouks treated the Egyptians.

These master workmen indeed form a powerful aristocracy, nor is it
possible to conceive one apparently more oppressive. They are
ruthless tyrants; they habitually inflict upon their subjects
punishments more grievous than the slave population of our colonies
were ever visited with; not content with beating them with sticks, or
flogging them with knotted ropes, they are in the habit of felling
them with, or cutting their heads open with a file or lock.

The most usual punishment, however, or rather stimulus to increase
exertion, is to pull an apprentice's ears till they run with blood.
These youths, too, are worked for sixteen or even twenty hours a day;
they are often sold by one master to another; they are fed on
carrion, and they sleep in lofts or cellars.

Yet, whether it be that they are hardened by brutality, and really
unconscious of their degradation and unusual sufferings, or whether
they are supported by the belief that their day to be masters and
oppressors will surely arrive, the aristocracy of Wodgate is by no
means so unpopular as the aristocracy of most other places.

In the first place, it is a real aristocracy; it is privileged, but
it does something for its privileges. It is distinguished from the
main body, not merely by name. It is the most knowing class at
Wodgate; it possesses, in deed, in its way, complete knowledge; and
it imparts in its manner a certain quantity of it to those whom it
guides.

Thus it is an aristocracy that leads, and therefore a fact.
Moreover, the social system of Wodgate is not an unvarying course of
infinite toil. Thei