‘Do I think that railways will do away with canals in time? No, sir; I don’t. Because, you see, there’s lots of goods as don’t well bear the packing and unpacking as is necessary for railway travelling, as can be put straight on board a barge and never be shaken even, till they are unloaded just at the very place where they are wanted. And lots of other goods there are that _we_ can carry cheaper than the railway, where a day or two more on the road don’t matter. Besides which, there’s plenty of brickfields, collieries, ironworks, and such like just on the canal banks and some distance from railroads, that will always use barges to save the expense of carting; so that I don’t think canals will go out of fashion yet awhile. And that’s why I’m glad to hear as they’re passing an Act to do something for the poor children. You see it’s just this way, sir: our people as a rule don’t know how to read and write themselves, most of ’em having been on the boats since they could remember, and therefore they don’t see why they shouldn’t have the advantage of their children’s assistance in working the barge, the same as _their_ fathers had. ‘There’s another way in which I think the Act will do good, and that is this. It will teach our women perhaps to have a little more decency about them than some of the worst of them have. If you’ll believe me, sir, I see scenes on the canal sometimes, when some of the worst of them have been paid, as I can’t bear to look at, though not nearly so commonly now as I used to. And then again, it doesn’t always follow as because a man and woman work the same boat that they are married. In fact, in my opinion it would be a good thing if the lasses were not allowed on board after they had grown up to be twelve or thirteen, as it stands to reason that they’re nearly sure to grow up bargewomen. And after all’s said and done, it’s no fitting life for a woman to lead. As you’ve seen for yourself, there’s a good deal of hard work attached to it, even on a fine day like this; but in winter-time it’s simply cruel to a woman who has a young baby. However, I suppose when our children are compelled to go to school, as they say this new Act compels them, there’ll be a stop put to a good deal of what’s wrong about us, and perhaps folks may not have so good a reason for looking upon us as something worse than themselves. People seem to think that generally we are a regular bad lot; but I fancy if they knew a little more about us, they’d see that, though there _are_ some bad ones amongst us, take us all in all we are no worse than most of our neighbours. We seem somehow to have got a name for interfering with people as we chance to come across; but you may see for yourself, sir, that we have quite as much as we can do to mind our own business, and a bargeman can no more afford to neglect his business than anybody else, if he means to do any good in the world.