tops. Ralph selects hollow straw if he is
about to thatch a rick or a stack; but rye-
straw, with a solid and more lasting stem, is
preferred for thatching buildings. Ralph
moistens the straw that it may more easily
bend without breaking, and he forks it up in
a loose heap, which is afterwards separated
into small convenient bundles of parallel
straws. These bundles, or rather handfuls,
are laid on a lathed roof, and are kept down
by means of long rods, which are tied to the
laths by means of strong tarred twine; and
he thus lays several handfuls side by side. He
begins with the lower edge of the roof, and at
once covers, and allows the thatch to hang
over sufficiently to form eaves to the roof.
He then lays another row, allowing the lower
ends of these straws to hang over the upper
ends of those in the first layer. Thus he
proceeds upwards till he arrives at the ridge of
the roof, securing each handful to that which
preceded it, pressing it down to render it
rain-resisting, and further fixing it by the long
rods. Arrived at the top, the highest layer
of straw is made to extend beyond the ridge
on both sides, and the ends are brought
together and made to stand up like the bristles
on a hog. A split willow or a straw rope is
wound round a series of short rods stuck in
just below the ridge; and the upper layers of
straw become thus so fixed, that Ralph can
trim the extreme ends, and make the ridge
appear straight and symmetrical. Ralph
carries on his trade in a diversified way; he
uses the straw of wheat, rye, or any other
grain, or reed, or stubble, or heather—according
to the kind of roof which he is expected
to produce; stubble and heather are the
poorest, barley and oat straw the next in
rank, wheat and rye straw the next; but if
Ralph be a Norfolk thatcher, he is a first-class
man in his trade, and he thatches with reed.
In this kind of house-top there are no laths, a
few of the largest and stoutest reeds being
employed to form a light frame-work to
support the thatch. The thatch doctors say
that a reed roof will lie fifty years without
requiring repair; and that, with very slight
attention, it will last a whole century.

But what would a house-top be without the
chimney-pots? They form the salient points
in the picture. And what a medley are they!
Sometimes we see them ranged in a row, like
soldiers at drill; sometimes they are scattered
about the roof as if in search of each other;
sometimes one big fellow is overlooking a
number of little fellows, as if in marvel at
their impertinence in smoking by his side;
this one has a night-cap very much like a coal-
scuttle, while another's cap bears a nearer
resemblance to a monk's cowl, and a third
seems to show a preference for the form of
the letter T. What to do with the chimney-
pots is a question that troubles many an
architect. Whether to try to hide them, or
to make them a marked feature in the
construction, is a knotty problem. In many parts
of Italy, as at Florence, the mansions have
flat roofs, with deep cornices and bold
projecting soffits; the chimneys are usually
grouped into stacks, the tops of which,
increasing in bulk as they rise in height,
resemble a crown; and the slates with which
these chimneys are built are ranged so as to
act as ventilators. If we wish to know how
the Italian or Palladian style of Architecture
appears when chimney-pots are stuck upon
it without taste or judgment, let us jump
into a penny boat at Hungerford, and glance
at the river front of Somerset House as we
pass along; anything more provoking, in its
way, we need not seek for—little ricketty,
crooked, rheumatic, ungainly, discordant,
unsymmetrical smoke-pipes, frittering away
whatever there is of dignified character in
the façade beneath. How different is all this
from the Tudor and Elizabethan styles!
Here the chimney-stacks and chimney-pots
are real features in the architecture of the
building; and we almost love the chimney-
pots for the associations which they suggest
with the delightful old halls and kitchens
beneath—kitchens which have fire-places
large enough to swallow up a modern kitchen
itself. Long may it be before reforms and
improvements go so far as to deprive us of
our old county mansions, with their delightful
old house-tops and chimnies.

A curious item in the history of the house-
tops is that connected with the poor little
chimney-sweepers. The black-tattered, black-
skinned, barefooted, white-teethed climbers,
who groped their way through life in a mode
not much more pleasant than that of the rat-
catchers who permeate the London sewers,
were the victims of a system which involved
much commercial waste as well as moral
wrong. If we had close stoves, like our
continental neighbours, there would not be
much smoke to ascend the chimney, and if not
much smoke, then would sweeping be less
frequently necessary; and if less sweeping,
then fewer sweepers. Philosophers tell us
that, in an ordinary English open fire, seven-
eighths of all the fuel are wasted, inasmuch
as some of the heat goes whither it is not
wanted, and some of the coal goes off in smoke
without giving out any heat at all. Hence
have arisen the numerous and varied family
of close stoves: the Dutch stove and the
American stove, the Russian stove and the
Swedish stove, the Franklin stove and the
Beaumont stove, the cockle stove, aud the
Sylvester stove, and the Arnott stove—all
profess to be antagonistic to chimney-pots
and climbing boys. Good men, clever men,
clever and good men, laboured hard and
frequently to diminish the house-top cruelty.
Jonas Hanbury tried a great deal, and
effected a little to befriend the climbing boys
seventy years ago. Twenty years afterwards
the Society for Bettering the Condition of
the Poor sought to ameliorate the system by
raising the sympathies of the masters. Soon