laborers, and is deserving of all the commendation which the practical farmers of Northumberland unite in bestowing upon it.
It is pleasant to hear that the education in Northumberland is good, that the people eagerly seek to acquire knowledge, and that it is a rare thing to find a grown-up laborer who cannot read and write, and who is not capable of keeping his own accounts. Such a state of things contrasts favorably with the neglected condition of more southern counties; and when we are told that this education is not obtained through national schools, charitable institutions, and the like, but by the exertions of the peasant himself, it indeed bespeaks a state of society where sobriety is habitual, and intelligence held in high estimation.
There is not much said against the morality of this district, but it. must be borne in mind that this is comparatively a thinly inhabited county, and that there is no inducement for people to come here in search of employment from other parts of the country; consequently the farms are not crowded with the superfluous population of large towns, like the hop-grounds and orchards of Kent.
The question may here be asked, are those relations which ought to subsist between the employer and employed, honestly attended to? Does property discharge its duties to those by whose arm it is rendered productive? To this question I regret to find that all the evidence before the public, replies in the negative. Each district exhibits in a greater or less degree the neglected state of the peasant; there is little or no provision made for the proper education of his children, and equally scanty attention is paid to the fostering of sober and industrious habits. Instead of the smiling cottage garden, which we naturally associate with our ideas of "Merrie England," we are told of, and see in many places, miserable hovels,
