As manufacturers of ironmongery they carry the palm from the whole district; as founders of brass and workers of steel they fear none; while as nailers and locksmiths, their fame has spread even to the European markets whither their most skilful workmen have frequently been invited. Invited in vain! No wages can tempt the Wodgate man from his native home, that squatters’ seat which soon assumed the form of a large village, and then in turn soon expanded into a town, and at the present moment numbers its population by swarming thousands, lodged in the most miserable tenements, in the most hideous burgh, in the ugliest country in the world. But it has its enduring spell. Notwithstanding the spread of its civic prosperity, it has lost none of the characteristics of its original society; on the contrary, it has zealously preserved them. There are no landlords, head-lessees, main-masters, or butties in Wodgate. [Picture: George Borrow] No church there has yet raised its spire; and, as if the jealous spirit of Woden still haunted his ancient temple, even the conventicle scarcely dare show his humble front in some obscure corner. There is no municipality, no magistrate; there are no local acts, no vestries, no schools of any kind. The streets are never cleaned; every man lights his own house; nor does any one know anything except his business. [Picture: Borrow’s Birthplace] More than this, at Wodgate, a factory or large establishment of any kind is unknown. Here Labour reigns supreme. Its division, indeed, is favoured by their manners, but the interference or influence of mere capital is instantly resisted. The business of Wodgate is carried on by master workmen in their own houses, each of whom possess an unlimited number of what they call apprentices, by whom their affairs are principally conducted, and whom they treat as the Mamlouks treated the Egyptians. These master workmen indeed form a powerful aristocracy, nor is it possible to conceive one apparently more oppressive. They are ruthless tyrants; they habitually inflict upon their subjects punishments more grievous than the slave population of our colonies were ever visited with; not content with beating them with sticks, or flogging them with knotted ropes, they are in the habit of felling them with, or cutting their heads open with a file or lock. The most usual punishment, however, or rather stimulus to increase exertion, is to pull an apprentice’s ears till they run with blood. These youths, too, are worked for sixteen or even twenty hours a day; they are often sold by one master to another; they are fed on carrion, and they sleep in lofts or cellars.