nice little bit of garden, which produces most of the food consumed by the family—for he can’t afford butcher’s meat. Now and then, though, he buys a few bones of the butcher, or a few scraps such as a butcher has always to dispose of at the rate of sixpence a pound. He can’t eat fat pork, and he can’t smoke. He is tall, but not stout, and has a fine colour on his face, as if his occupation was healthy. His wages are 13s. 6d. a week—not a bad wage in Essex. His hours are long—from six in the morning till half-past five in the evening. On a Sunday morning he has to look after the horses; when he has done that he walks over to have a chat with his father-in-law. He never goes to church, because he doesn’t like the goings-on in the church and the white gowns. When he goes anywhere, it is to a barn where a Primitive Methodist preaches; him he can understand, but not the Church parson; and the Methodist preaches well and does not take a sixpence. That is why he likes the Methodist preacher. ‘Why,’ said he, ‘the parson makes a poor-rate in the church.’ ‘What do you mean?’ said I. ‘Why, I’ve seen the farmers go round with the plates and collect money.’ ‘Oh no,’ I replied; ‘that is the offertory, and the parson gives the money to the poor.’ ‘Does he?’ said Hodge. ‘I’ve never heard of his giving any money away, and he has never been near me, though I’ve lived five years in his parish.’ I explained that the late parson was old and infirm, but that the new parson would do better; and then Hodge admitted that he had heard as how he had called on a neighbour who was ill, and had left two half-crowns. Hodge is not a teetotaler, but drinks a table-beer which his wife brews. As to public-house beer, he declares it is poison, and never touches a drop. He pays to the Foresters five-and-sixpence a quarter, and shilling for his wife, and that secures him in case of sickness ten shillings a week and medical attendance for his wife and family. He goes to bed at nine o’clock, and that means a good deal of saving in the matter of coals and candles. He frankly admitted that he had made, and could make, no provision for old age. He had one grievance. His master was a Liberal, but he had told him now that schooling was free he must pay two shillings more for his rent; ‘and that ain’t very liberal,’ he said.