my sight, I had an allowance from the board
[of guardians]—half-a-crown and a loaf a week;
but my sight got worse and worse, and I couldn't
do anything to earn a trifle; and so, as I couldn't
live honest out on half-a-crown and a loaf a
week, I came into the workhouse in I860.

When I first came into the Union I was put
into the old men's wards. I thought it a strange
place, amongst a parcel of people from all parts.
They was then very bad behaved; their conversation
was horrid bad, and altogether it was a
great trial to me. I don't say as they was
worse than me, but their conversation was so
different to what I had been accustomed to. I
used to go down to work in the stone-pit
belonging to the workhouse till the doctor ordered
me not to go, as my eyes was so bad he was
afraid I should fall in.

The next year I was put into the men's
infirmary, where I was orderly-man for three years
and a half. My eyesight then became too bad
for me to be of any use much; and I have since
been sometimes in the infirmary and sometimes
in the old men's wards. In the six years I
have been in the house I have seen above
thirty deaths, I should say, altogether, and
always found the dying very grateful for
anything I could do for 'em. Many of 'em who
used to call me "selfish" [by this word the
paupers mean "conceited," "stuck-up," "self-
righteous,"] have become very friendly before
they died. In particular, one young man, a
cripple, who had always been a great enemy
to me, begged me that I would take the sacrament
with him before he died.

The worst of the workhouse, especially when
there is none of us in the ward as can read (and
I can't read now, because of my sight), is, that
the days are so Iong and tedious; and the men,
having nothing to do, will quarrel and storm so
among theirselves about nothing. And it's
wonderful how jealous everybody is of everybody
else. I may say as envy rolls about in
great heaps.

We old folks used to have meat for dinner,
and tea for supper, every day, till quite lately;
but both meat and tea was taken off from
me and thirteen more a few months back,
and for some time we only had what is
called the "house diet." But there has been
a new order again, and all of us as is over sixty
now get our tea, but not the meat every day as
we'd used to do. We now have for breakfast
(at half-past six) tea and six ounces of bread;
and for supper (at half-past five) we have bread
and cheese and tea. For dinner on Sundays
and Thursdays, we have soup. I have had a
bad rupture (about 1840), and the pea-soup
don't agree with me. I don't eat a basin of
soup once in a month. On Mondays and Fridays
we have cold boiled beef and vegetables; and
then I can manage to eat enough to keep me
going; but my constitution is gone, and I
haven't any appetite. On Tuesdays, Wednesdays
and Saturdays, we have suet pudding.
This I can't manage at all; it is too heavy.
When I try to eat it, I have a bad pain in less
than half an hour. So I generally leave it on
the table, and anybody has 'it. I feel I am fast
going down hill; but I could eat better, and
should suffer less pain, if I could have something
lighter to eat. I don't think I've eat an
allowance of cheese for three weeks. If I could
but have half a pint of beer a day, it would be
everything to me. I could do with that and my
bread, and should be contented.

I hope I'm as happy as anybody can be in a
workhouse; but I never knowed anybody stop
in, as could get out. In particular, they are
very averse to dying in the house. I recollect
one man—a very respectable sort of man he was
—saying to me, "If I only knowed the night I
was going to die, I'd get over the wall." And
he meant it; he never smiled a bit; he was
quite serious-like.

The writer asked the poor old man for how
much he thought he could get taken care of in
his native village, supposing he had the
opportunity of ending his days there. He said there
were ten or a dozen places where he could be
put up for five or six shillings a week. His
face brightened at the bare thought, and he
broke out ecstatically: "Ah, sir! that would
be too great happiness. Oh! how glad should
I be to have liberty once more! Often and
often do I say over to myself the lines (perhaps
you may know 'em, sir):

    Eager, the soldier meets his desp'rate foe,
    With fierce intent to give the fatal blow.
    The thing he fights for animates his eye,
    Namely, religion and dear liberty."

The light faded off his face as he added pathetically,
but submissively, "And I'm a prisoner!"

DUTCH HOLIDAYS.

THE first thing which strikes one on coming
into Holland is that Holland must have
suffered less from the Deluge than any other part
of the globe; that, physically speaking, it can
have been little changed by that event. To
possess an estate in Holland, and expect
anything to grow upon it, at first sight appears as
if you might as well make an investment in the
bottom of the sea, and go down occasionally to
look after it. The very people in parts of
Holland are like labourers on a submarine
estate, and have a seal-like kind of motion
when ashore betokening a fishy origin. Goldsmith
says that "the sea leans against the
land;" he might have said the land leans
against the sea, for in certain parts of Holland
there are fields and farm-houses several feet
below its level. The manner in which the
sea is continually being ladled out of
Holland is perfectly marvellous; the operation is
incessant, and the expense enormous. This
raises the price of every article of life, and the
value of labour, to a height unequalled in any
other continental country. It supplies, moreover,
a constant, stimulus to industry, for, were