arrival of his ships, or of the state of the markets, on which his whole daily business is dependent; and the fright of the timid owner of public securities, or of the well-paid functionaries of the government, which would spread itself into innumerable conjectures as to what commotion could have laid an embargo on the newspaper. For the mail to arrive without the journals, would be like the approach of day followed by no rising sun. Whenever the fact is alluded to, every man becomes instantly sensible that society could not exist in its present wonderful ramifications without newspapers. They are not merely the offspring of the natural system of society, they are essential parts of it, which will outlive the throne and the peerage.

A SHORT STORY OF THE ALLOTMENT SYSTEM.

THIRTEEN years ago, when allotments for the poor were first talked of, I well remember that many dissentient voices were raised against the measure; and in our small village of Westbrook, more than one farmer was found who predicted all sorts of evil from its accomplishment. At this time West-brook was a nest of half-ruinous cottages, chiefly inhabited by agricultural labourers, who took no pains to keep up the appearance of the tenements in which they lived, and which from their great age were constantly in want of repair. Tiles were blown off, and unless the inconvenience was immediate, seldom replaced; the plaister fell in large patches from the bulging gables and overhanging fronts, and remained so till masked by the summer coat of whitewash which most of the housewives found time to apply; few whole casements existed, but when the old leaden frames let fall a lozenge, a bit of brown paper, or in some cases a piece of felt, or a handful of rags, filled up the aperture, and considerably added to the neglected and ill-to-do aspect of one of the most pleasantly-situated hamlets in Essex. Sir Gilbert Woodford, the lord of the manor, had been for some years an absentee, and so long as the rents were forthcoming, his agent cared little for the comforts of the tenants. The hall itself, with its closed windows and pleasure garden run wild, was the picture of desolation; and,

in fact, nothing seemed to thrive save beer-shops, which every tenth house in West-brook professed to be. About this period, the distress generally felt in the agricultural districts, the lowness of wages, and consequent dissatisfaction, occasioned the landed proprietors to legislate among themselves, how they might best quench the incendiary fires nightly blazing from county to county, spreading terror and ruin among their wealthier tenants. Then it was, that, while some contented themselves with hunting out the offenders, and subjecting the county to fresh expense in prosecutions, and an increase of prisoners, others, more wisely observing that neither the gibbet nor the convict-ship affected the cause, or allayed the imbecile vengeance it occasioned, at length turned their eyes to the condition of the farm-servant, and felt the necessity of conceding something to his wants. It was at this juncture that Sir Gilbert returned to West-brook; and one of his first acts was to grant some sixty allotments, varying from fifteen to twenty rods of land, to the neediest labourers on his estate; those who had the largest families had the largest piece of ground, and a rent of five shillings in the one case, and seven in the other, was fixed for their annual rental. The delight of the poor labourers at this arrangement was only equalled by the chagrin of one or two of their employers, whose fears and jealousy furnished a host of arguments against the well-working of the system, "You know, neighbour Noakes," said Farmer Woodfine, letting the bridle fall on the neck of his sturdy cob, while he paused to talk to his friend, who was plodding up the field path from the marshes, where he had been to look at some fat stock for the Christmas market,— "You know as well as I, that it is in the nature of a man to be more careful of himself than of another. Very well, sir. If he has ground of his own, his master's will be neglected; for it stands to reason that after rising at four o'clock, and working two good hours for himself, he will not be as fresh and strong as if he came direct to his day's labour at six; and what other way is there for him to cultivate his allotment? "Very true, neighbour Woodfine," responded Mr. Noakes; "but we should do unto others as we would be done by ; and between ourselves, the condition of the agricultural labourer wants bettering. Here they are, comparatively speaking, well off; but in the lower parts of the county, and in Suffolk and Norfolk, the average wages is not more than seven or eight shillings a week; and what is that for a man with a wife and family?" "Ay, ay, that is another thing," replied

Mr. Woodfine, sharply, evidently not a bit pleased by his neighbour's view of the matter; "but here the case is very different. There is John May, for instance, one of my best workmen (when he hasn't had a drop too much); I understand he has got one of the largest shares allotted to him, and I pay him constant wages-twelve shillings a week; he has a large family to be sure, but one of his boys can earn 2s. 6d. a week in the season at crow-keeping." "That, however, does not last all the year round," said Mr. Noakes, smiling; "and May's wife and six children, and three shillings a week for his cottage, cannot leave much of his twelve shillings unspent when Saturday night comes." "Ah, I see, they have bitten you with the philanthropy of the notion," interrupted Mr. Woodfine; "but mark my words: when the spring comes, you will see the evil of it. A pretty thing indeed, for a master to be subject to the convenience of his servants! And I should not at all wonder, if May comes to me, and says he wants a day for himself, and picks the finest in the week for that purpose. He has worked very well hitherto," he continued; "but it stands to reason that after twelve hours' toil, a man must be too exhausted to be of any use to himself. It can only be done by getting up of mornings, and then, as I before said, he cannot be half his worth to me. Sir Gilbert does it with a good intention, I have no doubt; but so long as these folks get their rent, it matters little to them how much you or I may suffer for the sake of their seeing themselves puffed in the newspapers as pattern landlords." And so Mr. Woodfine gathered up the reins and prepared to amble home, all the while exclaiming, "You will see; spring time is not far off; have a care of your seed potatoes; look sharp after the manure;" while Farmer Noakes smilingly held back the five-barred gate for him to pass through, good-humouredly observing, "I am always inclined to think well of everything that promises to better the condition of poor humanity, and sincerely hope the working of the system may disprove your suspicions, and remove your prejudices." "We shall see, we shall see," repeated Mr. Woodfine. “I have set my heart fairly against it, and so I tell you." Thus saying, he bade the other good morning, and rode off.

In a nook of the lane, leading to the manor farm, stood a single cottage, apparently co-equal in age with those that composed the village. Before beer-shops had been so rife in the neighbourhood, this little spot had been remarkable for the trimness of the flowerknot before it, and the luxuriance of a vine by which it was over

spread; but now it differed very little from the aspect of those in the hamlet. This was the habitation of Mr. Woodfine's man, John May, who, generally speaking, was a good specimen of his class-honest and hardworking, never negleeting his employer's interest or his own, but when, as the farmer phrased it, "he had had a drop too much." On these occasions (which, to do him justice, rarely happened, save at Christmas and Easter-fair time, or in the event of a cricket match,) it would take John some days to wean himself sober; and a fit of inebriation generally cost him the loss of half a week's work, the displeasure of his master, head-ache, moroseness, and discontent on his own side, and short allowance on that of his wife and children; but though, as I have said, these outbreaks were by no means ordinary occurrences, he ran the hazard of them daily; for the want of other resources sent the poor farm-servant, by way of relaxation, to the publichouse. The consequence of this was,-the pint of ale to which he had been accustomed to limit himself, soon grew into a pot. And, in the meantime, the vine, which had been so trimly kept and well trained, and the fruitage of which had proved an important source of profit, began to show the extended absences of the proprietor; and the little garden (too small for the produce of vegetables), but rich in sweetherbs and early flowers another source of wealth to the humble housewife— in spite of Susan May's endeavours and the attention of the two eldest boys in weeding and watering it, declined in the beauty and abundance of its blossoms, and missed the deep digging, manure, and fresh mould, which John had been in the habit of bestowing on it. The effect of these apparent trifles soon became felt by his wife and family, and, in conjunction with his doubled potations, considerably shrank his limited means, and caused a correspondent diminishment in the comforts of his humble homestead. It was at this period, and just as John May was progressing from a tipler to a confirmed sot, that Sir Gilbert Woodford commenced his trial of the allotment system, and gave a new impulse to the poor man's energies, by granting him, in consideration of his numerous family, one of the largest shares. All the labouring men in the village more or less benefited by the arrangement, and in a very short time its effects began to tell on the characters of this hitherto neglected class. The ground was given to them at the beginning of the year, and no sooner did the spring arrive, than emulative industry sprang up

athong at them, and gratitude, no less than self-interest, actuated them in the desire to render their little holdings productive and well-kept; the early day-break found few of the proprietors unemployed, and such of the boys as were able to assist felt almost as proud of the possession as their parents; the woods and roads were put under contribution, for the purpose of enriching the soil; the accumulations of dead leaves and heaps of rotted weeds and road-dust served admirably for this purpose, and the task of collecting it gave the young assistants health, habits of early rising, perseverance, and industry. By March the ground was dug, the manure worked in, and, in his anxiety to compete with his neighbours, John May not only rose early, but, as the evenings lengthened, became too much absorbed in the business of his garden, to stay out the reading of the cheap paper at the Plough. By this means he saved a pint of ale nightly, and by putting the price of it aside, was astonished in a short time to find it amount to a sufficient sum to purchase all the seeds and plants he required to crop his ground. This was the crisis that would either prove or refute Mr. Woodfine's predictions on the subject; and such of his neighbours as he had inoculated with his prejudices, or who possessed them on their own account, began to watch their beds of plants, seed potatoes, and heaps of manure, with jealous vigilance, forgetful that nothing serves so much to keep a man honest as having a character to sustain. Without this their servants would have forfeited their possessions; so that it became a guarantee of good conduct, instead of, as these gentlemen believed, a provocative to peculation. Seed-time passed away; their employers lost nothing, not even the day which it was supposed they would be exacting enough to ask for themselves, and the poor men's gardens were stocked. Neither was it observable that any diminution took place in the manner or amount of their daily labour; on the contrary, the very circumstance which it was supposed would take from it imparted a moral strength that no longer made them feel mere beasts of burden; they had an interest in the soil themselves; and the consciousness of owning ever so small a tract-anything beyond the task-work of labour, the bare price of daily bread-awoke a feeling of self-respect and independence that made them work with a good will, more liberal of its labour than the compelled hireling who deals out so much of his corporeal strength as will win him his scanty livelihood. And now, as the spring advanced, the allotments began to wear quite a flourishing