Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 1.djvu/32

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24

��THE PEDIGEEE OF ROYALTY,

��the headstones of a size, all alike, and inscribed only with the name, initials, and figures, denoting the age, and year of death, as simple as possible, begin- ning with the founder. The ages thus given and general statistics show great longevity in the community. It would seem that the freedom from worldly cares was accompanied by length of days. As they have no concern about the fu- ture — their support being secured — they have leisure to invent and to perfect the labor-saving machinery which does such ! service out-of-doors and in. They do not at Canterbury manufacture so many wares as formerly, but of its kind their work is of the best; and they are as shrewd at driving a bargain as they are efficient managers. They have shown great judgment in the construction of ag- ricultural implements,inhigh cultivation, in the raising of stock, and in the selec- tion of the fittest. At six o'clock of our first evening there, we heard the great bell ring, and were invited to go up to the barn and see the milking. Some

��thirty cows filed in, each to her own stall, when one of the brethren moved a lever, by means of which all were secured at once, and the work was begun by the sisters. The blue-frocked young men waited round till it was over, then the milking stools were hung up in order, the lever pressed back, and every stan- chion slid aside, setting free the cows which were all taken back to the pasture to remain till sunrise.

On our second evening, a company of young girls gathered round the piano, and sung "Ninety and Nine," and "Hold the Fort" from the veritable Moody and Sankey's hymns ; and after that, we were admitted to an old-fashioned apple-bee T iii the great wash-room, to which cart- loads of apples had been brought, in readiness, and where, at nine o'clock, we left the large party, in the height of busi- ness, running the machines, carrying round the trays of pared apples, and col- lecting the slices, altogether a social scene, an unexpected merry-making, for a Shaker community. A. B. Harris.

��THE PEDIGBEE OF BOYALTY.

��BY MAURICE SILINGSBY.

��In a small parish, a few leagues out of London, a young and beautiful girl sat sobbing as though her heart would break. And good reason she had, poor child, for in the same humble room her mother had but just breathed her last.

In this same room stood the undertaker and one of the parish officials, who had just arrived. Neither of them paid much heed to the sobs and lamentations of the poor girl, for they were used to such scenes, and in no way liable to overflow with a superabundance of sympathy in any case.

They had been summoned hither by some friendly neighbor of the deceased, and were now considering with charac- teristic sagacity the causes which, in their imagination rather than in fact, had led to the present state of increased pau- perism.

Mrs. Forsyth was cited as an example

��in point, although the poor woman man- aged, up to the last moment of her life T to keep off the parish.

Jack Forsyth, they said — that was the late husband of the deceased— had been left with a fortune of three hundred pounds ; but he had squandered it all in riotous living, before his death, and had left his wife and child to come on the parish.

And such, they sagely assured each other, were the promoting causes of the present increase of pauperism — and pau- perism, they still further affirmed, could never be eradicated from their midst so long as people were permitted to do just as they liked, and throw away the money which a kind Providence had seen fit to bestow upon them.

Ellen Forsyth, despite the frantic na- ture of her grief, could not well avoid listening to the unfeeling remarks of

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