themselves, endowed with no mean degree of independent spirit and natural intelligence; and working men know better than beforetime that their employers are not all the heartless tyrants which it has been too fashionable to encourage them to believe. The working men have a better insight into the real causes of trade panics than they used to have; and both masters and men feel more every day that their fortunes are naturally bound together for good or evil; and if the working men of Lancashire continue to struggle through the present trying pass of their lives with the brave patience which they have shown hitherto, they will have done more to defeat the arguments of those who hold them to be unfit for political power than the finest eloquence of their best friends could have done in the same time. The labour master and I had a little talk about these things as we went towards the lower end of the moor. A few minutes' slow walk brought us to the spot, where some twenty of the hardier sort of operatives were at work in a damp clay cutting. "This is heavy work for sich chaps as these," said Jackson; "but I let 'em work bi'th lump here. I give'em so much clay apiece to shift, and they can begin when they like, an' drop it th' same. Th' men seem satisfied wi' that arrangement, an' they done wonders, considerin' th' nature o'th job. There's many o'th men that come on to this moor are badly off for suitable things for their feet. I've had to give lots o' clogs away among'em. You see men cannot work with ony comfort among stuff o' this sort without summat substantial on. It rives poor shoon to pieces i' no time. Beside, they're not men that can ston bein' witchod (wetshod) like some. They haven't been used to it as a rule. Now, this is one o'th' finest days we've had this year; an' you haven't sin what th' ground is like in bad weather. But you'd be astonished what a difference wet makes on this moor. When it's bin rain for a day or two th' wark's as heavy again. Th' stuff's heavier to lift, an' worse to wheel; an' th' ground is slutchy. That tries 'em up, an' poo's their shoon to pieces; an' men that are wakely get knocked out o' time with it. But thoose that can stand it get hardened by it. There's a great difference; what would do one man's constitution good will kill another. Winter time 'll try 'em up tightly. . . Wait there a bit," continued he, "I'll be with you again directly." He then went down into the cutting to speak to some of his men, whilst I walked about the edge of the bank. From a distant part of the moor, the bray of a jackass came faint upon the sleepy wind. "Yer tho', Jone," said one of the men, resting upon his spade; "another cally-weighver gone!" " Ay," replied Jone, "th' owd lad's deawn't his cut. He'll want no more tickets, yon mon!" The country folk of Lancashire say that a weaver dies every time a jackass brays. Jackson came up from the cutting, and we walked back to where the greatest number of men were at work.