On the other hand, marriage with a junior member of the nobility at once confers the husband's rank on a bride of the second estate, who henceforth ceases to hold open intercourse with her own family. Contrariwise, ladies of the nobility who ally themselves with merchants or yeomen sink to the level of their husbands' station. * * * * * With the populace again I have more intimacy and sympathy than with the Greens, and through my attendants and bodyguard at the palace I am brought more closely into touch with the people at large. This third estate of the realm consists of all the manual labourers, the artisans, the fisher-folk, and in short all such persons as live by receiving wages, whether in money or kind. I have already hinted that their condition and well-being form the constant care of the councillors, who see that their homes are sanitary, well built and generally adequate, whilst the wages paid must be deemed sufficient to support the individual or his family in decency and comfort. In fact, the supervision of this, the largest and economically the most important section of the community, constitutes the first care of the hierarchy. The people seem hale and happy, nor do they exhibit any envy of the better-fed and better-clad Greens, nor yet of the majestic and privileged Reds. The rules of family life prevail less strongly here owing to the wider dispersal of its members, but they are nominally identical with those in the classes above. There are no law courts in Meleager, and usually disputes and difficulties in this class are settled, as I have already shown, in the judgment hall of the capital, where I sit on most days. The women-folk of the third estate live in less seclusion than do those of the nobility and merchants, a result that is due (as in our Mohammedan countries) to the necessity of the poor having to perform their marketing and daily business in public. This same class also may be said to include the numerous tribe of indentured labourers, mostly from Barbaria, whose status somewhat resembles that of the Roman slaves under the Empire. Vice and drunkenness, though by no means unfrequent, are not conspicuous in this class; whilst the police patrols keep a pretty sharp eye on the landlords of the lower sort of wine-shop and brothel. These resorts of the more dissipated of the people are also visited at times by the councillors charged with their management and reputation, so that the streets of Tamarida at night would compare favourably with those of most European cities, and such debauchery as does exist is assuredly kept well concealed behind doors and is not allowed to offend the eyes or the ears of the passer-by in the streets, which, though dark and narrow, can be safely traversed by all after nightfall. A few cases of quarrelling and use of the knife occur and are severely punished by the lash whenever the culprits are brought to book; deliberate murder