Consider, next, the widening of the world. I think that it is the tendency of those who live in a small country to make it smaller by their own seclusion. The rustic, for instance, formerly knew nothing of the world but his farm and his village and the nearest market town, whither he carried produce or drove the pigs on market day. This town--which once a week was enlivened by the crowd attending the market; the farmers at the Corn Exchange or the cattle-sheds; the cries of the people at the stalls; the farmers’ ordinary at the principal inn--was, to the rustic, a metropolis, a centre of gaiety. There came rumours, it is true, of an outer world. Somewhere or other there was a king; a recruiting-sergeant carried off a young man here and there; there were recollections of the great wars when wheat went up to 103s. a quarter, when farmers became squires, and squires became peers, but the rustic remained where he was. The village was so full that wages ran down, even while wheat went up; in Devonshire, a man of eighty years assures me that the wages of the agricultural labourer in his youth were 7s. a week, with a two or four roomed cottage, and a pound or two to be made at harvest time. Such a man, with his family, never tasted meat all his life, except sometimes a piece of fat pork. His children lived chiefly on oat-cake. The man’s drink was rough harsh cider. It seems incredible how strong men, of splendid physique, could have been made out of such materials. [Illustration: THE CORONATION SPOON] [Illustration: THE AMPULLA OR RECEPTACLE FOR THE HOLY OIL FOR ANOINTING] This man’s position is now so far improved that he receives about twenty shillings a week, with harvest allowances; that he has an allotment on which he grows his vegetables; that he keeps poultry and a pig; that he eats meat of some kind every day; that his wife and children go warmly clad. [Illustration: THE CORONATION VESTMENTS]