any better condition than similar farms in the neighbourhood, but, considering the recent wet seasons, its state of cultivation is not discreditable to the occupier, and the fences and roads are fairly attended to for the district. Summarised these respective holdings show the following results per 500 acres :—

Let us consider what deductions can be drawn from a comparison of these two farms.

Extraneous labour is employed on the 'Edge' to the extent of 48. 2 d. per acre. The estimated receipts leave a balance over outgoings of 40l. per annum. How, then, is the family maintained? Billy Bilston is an industrious individual, but that won't keep his family on 40l. a year. Does he concentrate all his energies upon his farm, or does he, in order to support his olive branches, supplement his income from other sources? I am free to confess that the latter conclusion seems to me irresistible. Compare this small balance of 40l. with the sum of 281l. 68. due to this family for labour, and what is the result? A hopeless deficit. Who, then, benefits by this system of farming? Certainly not the landowner, for under it the productive power of the soil, if not impaired, will at best remain stationary. Certainly not the tenant or his family, because, although they live no better and work twice as hard as farm labourers, no fund has accrued to pay them even ordinary wages, to say nothing of the legitimate reward of their toil. That the working population of the district suffer is apparent, because this family, choosing to work hard for next to nothing, limits the demand for and value of their services. And the paucity of the products raised on this Edge farm gives no cause of rejoicing to the consuming masses of the country. Through such treatment they have to spend so much more of their money for the necessaries of life on foreign comestibles instead of those of our own country. This enhances the prices of commodities to them; it increases foreign competition to the English farmer, and diminishes the spending power of all classes in the nation.

The very generous system adopted in the management of A Farm that really pays' reverses all this. The landowner's property is in a progressive state of improvement. The occupier lives a life of comfort and culture, and is a useful member of society. A large fund is devoted to the employment of labour, which is well paid. The production of augmented quantities of food is beneficial to the consuming masses of the country, and the considerable sums employed in the business circulate and fructify in the pockets of all who are directly or indirectly contributing towards the maintenance of the undertaking.

The doctrine propounded by Lady Catherine that farmers must understand their business to make farming pay is no new theory. It existed before we entered into the acute stages of agricultural depression some ten years ago, and from which we are still suffering. During that period most amateur farmers have disappeared in Shropshire as in other parts. The practical element remaining is quite as likely to be able to decide how to manage their business and regulate their households as are their numerous advisers.

The farmers are lectured as to the time they should rise, what they should do in the way of supervision, and what they should leave undone in the way of hunting, &c. Their wives and daughters are told they must devote their time and energies to the dairy and poultry yard, and eschew lawn tennis, French fashions, and the pianoforte that dreadful instrument! how much it has to answer for! Is this altogether good taste, and does it not instinctively provoke the tu quoque? Would not the word presumption be used if the case were reversed and the farmers dictated to the landowners of England the number of balls or dinner parties that should be given, or the correct retinue that should be maintained in establishments on estates of different sizes?

The large majority of farmers are not only an industrious but they are also an economical race. There are many varieties of farming, but Lady Catherine seems to imagine that that ancient and honourable occupation is confined to the keeping of a few cows and poultry. Such is not the case. Lady Catherine disapproves of hunting farmers. I regret to see there are so few left who take part in this national pastime, which has done so much in the past to cement the friendship of the different classes identified with country life. Thirty years ago, when I first went out, they mustered in goodly numbers at the various appointments in their respective neighbourhoods. Now they are like swallows in autumn. At any meet in these parts they can be counted on the fingers of your one hand. What will the issue be? I regret to prognosticate it, for the abolition of hunting, which entirely depends on the goodwill of the farmer, will depreciate several sources of agricultural revenue, and tend more and more to alienate the complex sections of which modern English

society is constituted. I commend the study of the character of Tom Turnbull in Whyte-Melville's Inside the Bar as an illustration of some of the advantages of fox-hunting as a means to help to make farming pay, to all those who would see the British agriculturist conspicuous by his absence from the hunting field.

I have always been an advocate of a considerable number of small and medium as well as large farms, as being most to the advantage of the rural population of this country, principally by affording through the former an opportunity for the industrious and thrifty labourer to gradually improve his position. I deprecate the increase of the size of farms without there being reasonable probability of equally good if not improved conditions of agriculture ensuing. There is now rather a tendency to diminish large holdings, but I imagine that this practice will be evanescent, because the expenses of farming itself and of estate management will be much multiplied by its adoption. This temporary tendency has arisen from the difficulties that have so persistently beset agriculture during the last decade. These, combined with disagreeables from above and below and with serious financial deficiencies, have led too many enterprising agriculturists to retire, and have hitherto prevented men of capital and intelligence from filling up the gaps. But some of these drawbacks are removed and other combinations are daily appearing to revive agricultural operations on a large scale. This must be so, because it is transparent to all who have studied the subject closely that valuable as a mixture of small holdings may be for the labouring classes where they can supplement their returns by earned wages, no amount of personal hard work can replace in a small way the saving to be effected by the introduction of expensive machinery, which can only be utilised on a large scale.

The regeneration of British agriculture can only reappear by a discontinuance of such well-nigh obsolete practices as resorting to the bare fallow, which I found practised at the Edge farm, by diminishing the large proportion of wheat usually grown and by substituting a larger quantity of green crops, the feeding of more stock, the raising of more dairy produce. It matters not whether the British farmer is raising potatoes or pigs, cabbages or mutton, beef or butter, chickens or cheese; each and all of them can be more economically produced on a large than on a very small scale. The dairy will be as much revolutionised by new machinery as the field. A full-sized Danish cream separater will divide cream from the milk of two hundred cows in the same time as Mrs. Bilston, after waiting twelve hours for it to rise, can skim it from the output of any two of her dairy kine, and the former process will effectually remove every particle of cream, while the latter at the best is imperfectly accomplished. What chance, then, has Mrs. Bilston with the separater?

No prejudices against the simple elementary education accorded

to the labouring classes in the rural districts will undo its value to the recipients. Difficult problems in arithmetic and the study of polysyllabic words are, I quite agree, uncalled for in the future life of the majority of agricultural labourers, but the simple third standard admits of the child's partial exemption from school at any age, and he forthwith buckles to his work. The Scotch labourer has received a better education than his English brother for two centuries past, and it has not in any way unfitted him to fulfil his allotted functions. Surely elementary education need not debar the acquisition of the knowledge of any useful technical work, whether it be the details of an agricultural household or the duties of a lady's-maid.

Truly crazes run through society nowadays, as Lady Catherine says, and the latest among certain classes is the desire to throw back British agriculture half a century and resuscitate the smock-frock farmer. As well try to restore the heptarchy!

Ensdon House, near Shrewsbury.

J. BOWEN-JONES.

LUNACY LAW REFORM.

PUBLIC attention has of late been so urgently called to the state of the lunacy laws and their proposed reform, that no apology is needed for the subject which I am about to consider. But, when I confess that I am engaged in the care of the insane, I am well aware that no excuse would be sufficient in the eyes of many to justify my intervention, and that most people will receive what I may say with much suspicion and prejudice. I am quite ready to admit that such feelings are natural, and to a great extent reasonable. The mystery and horror which surround those unfortunates who bear human form, and yet stand without the pale of human intelligence, necessarily extend in some degree to their guardians. When we add to this, that the insane are for the most part kept out of sight of the world, we need no more to explain the way in which their 'keepers' are regarded. The thought that any organisation exists which is secret in its conduct and proceedings, has a strange fascination for many minds; and those who have charge of the insane cannot wonder if their calling is looked upon with something of the interest, not wholly benevolent, which is inspired by bodies of such very diverse character as the Jesuit order or the Russian diplomatic service.

This feeling, usually latent, is easily roused in anyone who fears there is any chance of his being immured, though sane, in an asylum, a fate which rightly appeals with as much force to the imagination as the similar danger of being buried alive.

A few instances of evident abuse of the present lunacy laws are thus only needed to produce an epidemic of fear and righteous indignation which would sweep away all that might seem a danger to liberty.

It is not likely that legislation in a panic, and by persons necessarily little acquainted with the subject, would be more successful in this case than it proves in others. It seems therefore desirable to anticipate the danger, and discuss beforehand the probable results of any change, some of which may on inquiry seem likely to prove very different from what are at present anticipated. In saying this, I do not wish to suggest that no alteration should be made. There are various gaps in the law as it stands, which everyone admits should be filled up; but, beyond this, it is at least matter for very anxious considera