equal adroitness, they sung in jovial chorus,
inspired by copious libations of grog, the national
anthem, Rule Britannia!

COUNTRY COTTAGES.

PENNSYLVANIA-ROW, Grumbleton, consists of
a dozen cottages, built, when work was slack
and wages were low, by a plasterer with a little
ready money. The site is a narrow strip of land,
one rood twenty-three perches in measurement,
sold by the lord of the manor for as much as it
would bring. The Row faces the turnpike-road,
with a north-easterly aspect. It has a neat
appearance, two windows and a door alternately
below, and an even line of up-stairs windows,
with its name and date in the middle, executed
in cement of the best description. Behind the
Row is barely room for out-buildings, pigsties,
and a couple of brick ovens. There is no garden-
ground, but a few flower-pots are set along the
wall of the enclosure styled the area, which,
what with the wind and the cats, have a bad
time of it. The cottages are not provided with
spring water, but there is a considerable stream
at the bottom of the hill, which is but some
three hundred feet high, and not very steep in
places. The stream is pure, except when it is
blackened by refuse and dirt from old rags
imported from abroad to our neighbouring paper-
mills; occasionally at such times it is a little
poisonous; but the folks don't mind this so
much as they did. It must not be forgotten
that there is also a pump opposite to the Row,
and the owner of this pump is ready at any
time to unchain it and sell the pure element for
the trifling sum of a halfpenny a bucket, or seven
buckets for threepence, just one a day for the
week. Moreover, it rains abundantly in
Grumbleton. If the people are not teetotallers, it is
because they like something better than the water.

We are quite in the country. Is any one
tempted to take holiday lodgings in this Row?
Let him look at any one of the houses, say
Number Seven. It is a small bun and cake
shop, with ginger-beer bottles and apples in the
window. The floor is spongy brick, the partition
wall between it and the next cottage on
either side is one brick thick. The wall may be
whitewashed or coloured. A newly married
couple in the first blush of the honeymoon once
upon a time tried papering; but paper would not
stick. On the ground floor are a couple of rooms,
with a scullery or pantry, which serves as a
coal-hole and lumber-room as well; and there is
a door opening into the "area." Both front
and back doors (there being no room for porches
on the roadside) are carefully listed, and some
other contrivance is also resorted to, to keep
out the wind and driving wet.

Up-stairs are three rooms, or, more accurately,
compartments, of which the "landing" is one.
There are no doors, the rooms being open to the
roof. The division between each is a lath and
plaster screen, six feet six inches in height.
Doors would be an absurd expense on the
builder's part, when a curtain, which the tenants
can make up for themselves and fix on rings,
does nearly as well.

The ventilation might seem to be very bad
indeed, as only one square of glass in each
window is made to open; but the joiner's work
is contrived to secure constant currents of fresh
air. The windows of unseasoned wood well
shrunk, do not shut close, and in a stormy night
keep up a continual rattle, which it is said lulls
the inmates to sleep when they are used to it.
They can plug the windows if they do not like
the noise, but whether they do that or not the
air comes in freely—very freely indeed.

Number Seven is tolerably full when the day's
work is done and everybody is at home. It bears
the reputation of being a happy home. The
inmates are fond of music, and sing at the chapel. At
home they often practise for this purpose. They
have also secular music—"Beautiful Star"—in
which the chorus comes in lustily; and one of
the lodgers can sing "Come into the garden,
Maude," with more power of voice than Mr.
Sims Reeves, though perhaps with rather less
expression. Number Six likes to hear the
music; any way, it is better than the squalling
chorus of refractory children at Number Five,
who won't go to bed till they are whipped; and
Number Eight prefers it to the not unfrequent
brawl at Number Nine between a drunken
husband and a shrewish helpmate. The sick
young man at Number Ten is also musical.
Being on his club, he spends most of his
compulsory idleness (for he would forfeit his allowance,
and be fined, if he attempted to work) in
learning the tune of a hornpipe, on what is
supposed to be a fiddle. The lodgers now in Number
Seven, and indeed in nearly all the other houses
where room can possibly be made for them, are
young men not yet settled in homes of their own.
Pennsylvania, however, marries early, and by the
broker's help can hire furniture cheaply. The
young men pay a weekly sum for board and
lodging. They work in stone quarries, in the
brick-fields, or on the farms. They must be
taken in and done for by somebody, and unless
these good cottagers stood their friends they
would be homeless and destitute. Many are
fine steady fellows; but the worst must not be
turned out of doors.

There are nine, ten, or a dozen nightly
occupants of each cottage in the Row, and the following
arrangements are made for their comfort.
The parents and smallest children have one
room all to themselves. The girls have another.
Brothers and lodgers have the landing. These
boys and bachelors are usually first up in the
morning and the last to go to bed at night, and
the family see but little of them up-stairs,
excepting on a Sunday.

Crowded dwellings—in the country at least—
are not the prolific cause of immorality
commonly supposed. Public opinion among the
rural poor is in favour of morality and decency,
while even, where they have the choice, they do
not hesitate to permit domestic arrangements,
which to others appear highly objectionable, but