where meetings of the inhabitants are from time to time held for the
management of local affairs. This slide, for instance, is taken in
the little town of Cirencester. In front is the Town Hall, and in
rear of it the Church with its tower.
[Sidenote: 6. A Market.]
These small towns could not exist if it were not for the country
around them. On six days of the week they are silent and sleepy,
but on the seventh they wake up and do much business. This day,
known as Market Day, brings the farmers and their wives from all the
country round to sell their produce and to buy in the shops their
requirements for the week. Two or three times a year the market is
specially a large one, and is known as a Fair. Here is a Fair in
the little town of Burford. As you look down the street you can see
the green country without. But the street is full of people, and
there are stalls set up in it because there is no room for all the
purchasers in the shops. Therefore it is, that these small towns are
known as Market Towns.
[Sidenote: 7. Yarmouth.]
Some of the towns round the coast, however, are differently employed.
They depend not so much upon weekly markets as upon their fisheries.
Here is a scene at Yarmouth, with a number of old fishermen waiting
with their baskets on the quay for the return of the boats.
[Sidenote: 8. Newlyn Harbour.]
[Sidenote: 9. Landing Fish.]
In the next slide we have the fishing fleet of Newlyn, lying
sheltered in its harbour. And then we have a view of the boats on
their return deeply laden with their catch. Since Britain consists
of islands and has shores on all sides, the fisheries have much
importance.
But after all, if we would find the old life of England in which have
been reared the generations of men who have spread over the whole
world making the Empire and its commerce, we must go not only outside
London, but outside even the market and fishing towns into the rural
country.
[Sidenote: 10. A Country Road, Saintbury.]
Here is a road running past a farmhouse and cottages, with a flock of
geese in the foreground which are being reared for food in the winter.
[Sidenote: 11. A Village Street.]
[Sidenote: 12. Village Church and School.]
And here we enter a village, with its church visible up the street. A
village differs from a town in having no weekly market. It has fewer
shops, and is generally smaller. It is the place where the labourers
live who work on the surrounding farms. In its centre three buildings
generally stand near together. There is the church, not infrequently
several centuries old, and round the church is the churchyard with
the graves of twenty generations of the past villagers. Then there is
the school, and thirdly, there is the house of the clergyman. These
are the little institutions found in each of the several thousand
villages which are scattered at intervals of a mile or two over the
whole of the British Isles. Some of them contain two or three hundred
inhabitants, and some of them a thousand or twelve hundred.
[Sidenote: 13. Stoke Poges Church.]
Here is another village church, with a pointed spire instead of a
blunt tower. It is clothed, as you see, with creepers, and around
are the tombstones in the graveyard. There are generally bells
in the towers and spires of these country churches. On a bright
Sunday morning, when labour has ceased and the people take their
weekly rest, these bells ring merrily through all the green country
summoning the people, rich and poor, to assemble in the church for
the worship of God.
[Sidenote: 14. Cottages, Bisham, Berks.]
Let us now look at some of the houses which stand not even in
villages, but quite alone, or in groups of two or three, amid the
fields. Beside this road we have a short row of cottages clothed with
creepers, like the church that we saw just now, each with its little
garden in front. Do you see the labourer’s wife standing at her door
with a child on her arm and a dog at her feet? It is from thousands
upon thousands of such little homes as these, that have come the
soldiers and sailors who have fought for England, and the workmen
who have worked in the factories and have made England the great
industrial and commercial country which we know.
[Sidenote: 15. A Country Inn.]
Next we have a little inn by the roadside with a cart stopped beside
it. The dog is waiting for his master, the carter, who has gone
within to talk and rest and drink.
[Sidenote: 16. Mapledurham House.]
Such is the quiet life of the humbler people in the country parts of
England. But here and there through all the land there rises also
the country home of a rich family. Of all the features of England,
perhaps the most beautiful and the most indicative of peace and
strength and wealth, are these country houses of the upper classes.
We have one here surrounded by perfect trees and by spreading lawns
of thick short green grass.
[Sidenote: 17. Interior at Long Marston, Charles I. kitchen.]
Many of these houses are old, and have been little changed, though
well cared for, during several generations. This, for instance, is
a kitchen in one of them dating from 250 years ago. Do you note the
great beam of oak which supports the ceiling? Oak is an English tree
which, like teak in India, gives a timber as strong as iron.
[Sidenote: 18. Knole House.]
Here is another and yet grander house, surrounded by one of those
noble parks of which you heard in the last lecture.
[Sidenote: 19. Hunt Scene, Streatley, Berks.]
You may imagine with what pleasure the leading men of England escape
from their work in London, either in Parliament or in the Law Courts
or in the City, to these quiet, proud homes in the country, where
they may give themselves to sport both in winter and in summer--for
the climate of England is rarely either too hot or too cold for
activity throughout the day. Here, for instance, is a winter scene
in a country park, with a pack of dogs, or, as they are called,
hounds, in the foreground, for the hunting of the fox. The men on
horseback are ready to follow the hounds across the country, leaping
the hedgerows of which you heard in the third Lecture. With them you
may notice two or three ladies on horseback, who also will follow the
hounds and leap the hedges. That it is winter time you may tell from
the leafless branches of most of the trees.
[Sidenote: 20. Nuneham Park.]
On the other hand, we have here a summer scene in a country park with
a cricket match in progress.
Now I think you can understand something of the country life of
England. The village generally consists of the Squire, the Vicar,
the Schoolmaster, the Farmers, and the Labourers. The Squire owns
most of the land. He was educated at a great school. His sons become
officers in the Army and in the Navy. He is the unpaid magistrate of
the district, and lives in the great house in the park. Beside him,
and living in a smaller home, is the Vicar, who ministers on Sundays
in the church and visits the people in their homes to help them in
illness or trouble. In addition there are often Ministers of the
Free Churches, for religion is a matter for each man’s conscience,
notwithstanding the existence of a State Church. Beside the Vicar and
the Ministers is the Schoolmaster, to whom by law the children must
be sent to learn to read and write. Then there come the farmers, who
rent pieces of land from the Squire, and farm them with the help of
the labourers. The farmers live in farmhouses surrounded by cattle
sheds and corn barns, and the labourers occupy cottages such as we
have seen.
[Sidenote: 21. A Farmhouse.]
All these dwellers in the country--squires, vicars, schoolmasters,
farmers, and labourers, and also the tradesmen of the market
towns, depend for their livelihood on the crops of the field. In
one way or another they all receive a share of the harvests. Let
us therefore spend a few moments in considering the operations
of British agriculture. They are very different from those of a
tropical country, and it is impossible to understand the writings of
British authors unless you know something of the aspects of British
agriculture. The centre of the farm is the farmhouse, such as we have
here, with its outhouses for the farm implements, and for the young
animals which require protection against the weather. In the centre
of the picture you see the poultry, which are fed by the farmer’s
wife and daughters, while the farmer and his sons are away in the
fields. Close by the house a heap of firewood is laid ready for the
winter, and there is also the farmer’s gig, in which he drives to
sell his corn at the weekly market in the nearest town.
[Sidenote: 22. Hay Cutting: old style.]
A great change has taken place of late in the methods of farming,
for the steam engine has been applied to agriculture as well as to
the industries. Let us look for a moment at the old style of farming
which is now rapidly going out. Here, in a field surrounded by a
hedge, are three men mowing grass with scythes. The grass will be
left to dry in the sun; it will turn brown, and will then be heaped
into a hay stack for the winter food of the farm horses.
[Sidenote: 23. Thrashing: old style.]
Next we see the old method of thrashing corn. The man in the picture
holds a flail, or rod jointed in the centre, with which he beats the
corn, and so separates the grain from the straw.
[Sidenote: 24. Old Man Digging.]
And here we have an old rustic digging the ground with a spade.
Probably he is a man who can neither write nor read; for when he was
a boy the children of country villages were not obliged to go to
school.
[Sidenote: 25. Old Shepherd.]
[Sidenote: 26. Old Woman.]
Here is another such old rustic, a shepherd, who has spent his life
in tending sheep. Probably he never went to London, or, indeed, to
any of the large towns which have now been brought by railways to
within an hour or two of his home. But quite likely he often has
letters from a son who is a sailor in the Fleet in the China Seas,
from another son who is a soldier in India, and from a daughter who
is married to a farmer in Australia. And here is his wife, seated in
a corner of the village church.
[Sidenote: 27. Mare and Foal.]
[Sidenote: 28. Shire Horse.]
[Sidenote: 29. Landseer’s “Blacksmith’s Shop.”]
By far the most abundant crop in England is green grass, and the
English farmer therefore keeps many animals to feed upon it. Here
we have a mare and foal. The farm horses of England are much larger
and thicker built than the small horses of most parts of the world.
They are more powerful, but they are slower. Some of the English
cart horses are nearly as large as an average elephant. Until modern
times, when the steam engine was introduced, all the work of the farm
was done by men and horses. Here is another grand horse, and here a
picture painted by a great English artist, Landseer. It is owned by
the English nation and hung in the National Gallery, which stands in
Trafalgar Square. The picture is in the midst of London, but, as you
see, it represents a country scene, the shop of a shoeing smith, who
is putting an iron shoe on to the hoof of a horse in order that it
may not be injured by the paved roads. Beside the horse you see two
other of the animals that are common in every English countryside, a
donkey, which is the poor man’s horse, and a dog. Among the northern
nations, as you know, dogs are cared for and treated as companions.
[Sidenote: 30. Ploughing.]
Here we have one of the chief operations of British farming in which
horses and men work together. They are turning over the ground with
the plough to prepare it for the seed. Ploughing is usually done in
the autumn, so that the land may lie fallow, that is to say at rest,
for a time before the crops begin to grow in the spring.
[Sidenote: 31. Wheat in Sheaf.]
[Sidenote: 32. Carrying Corn.]
With this coloured slide we come to harvest time. The grain has
turned under the summer sun to a beautiful golden brown, and has
been cut and set in these stooks, where it is drying in the hot
August weather. Presently it will be taken away in wagons, drawn by
horses, and stacked. Do you see on the ground the straight lines of
stubble due to the fact that the seed from which the corn grew was
cast into the straight furrows made by the plough? In this slide the
last sheaves of the harvest are being gathered in. There will be much
rejoicing in the village to-night because the harvest has been safely
got, and rain storms have caused it no harm during the critical days
after it had been cut, when it stood drying in the sun.
[Sidenote: 33. Reaping Machine.]
The first farm machinery introduced in modern times was worked by
horses not by steam engines. For example, in this slide we have a
horse-drawn reaping machine employed to cut down corn, thus saving
the hand-work of many men.
[Sidenote: 34. Thrashing Machine.]
Here is a thrashing machine driven by a steam engine. The corn is
placed on the top of the machine where stand the two men; it is
caught into the running parts of the machine which are driven by the
engine to the right hand; it is beaten in the machine so that the
grain falls from the straw into the bags which you see, while the
straw is lifted by the elevator on to the stack to the left hand,
there to remain until required for the bedding of horses.
[Sidenote: 35. Cows.]
[Sidenote: 36. Cattle chewing Cud.]
Besides tilling the ground for the growth of corn, the farmers of
Britain keep many millions of cattle and sheep which feed upon
grass. Here is an ordinary country scene with cows, which are kept
for the sake of their milk. One of the chief foods in these northern
countries is the milk of cows, and the butter and cheese prepared
from milk. These cows live upon the grass, which is kept green by the
moist climate. Here we have cattle lying down chewing the cud.
[Sidenote: 37. Cattle Market, Faringdon.]
Next is a scene on a market day in a small country town. It is a fair
to which the farmers have brought in their cattle for sale.
[Sidenote: 38. Sheep.]
[Sidenote: 39. Sheep with Shepherd and Dog.]
[Sidenote: 40. Sheep Dog.]
[Sidenote: 41. Sheep Market: Chipping Campden.]
The most numerous animals on British farms are the sheep. This is a
fortunate fact, for wool is the most suitable material from which
to manufacture the warm clothing needed during the northern winter.
Here is a flock of sheep grazing. And here is another flock with the
shepherd who tends them, and his dog. Sheep-dogs are usually of the
kind known as Collies.
They are very remarkable creatures. A well-trained Collie obeys the
shepherd perfectly, and can bring a large flock of sheep to him
or guide it in any direction that he orders. Here is a coloured
photograph of a Collie dog. And lastly we have a sheep market,
similar to the cattle market which we visited a moment ago.
These are the principal rural occupations of Britain, the growing
of corn and the tending of cattle and sheep, but there are others,
although on a smaller scale.
[Sidenote: 42. Hop Garden.]
Here, for instance, we have a hop garden, where the creepers known
as hops are grown upon poles, and supply a little fruit which, when
dried, is used for the purpose of giving flavour to beer. Hops are
picked in the hot weather, and a great number of people are required
for the purpose. These people are, for the most part, got from the
great city of London, for the part of England in which most hops grow
is close to London. Once a year the very poorest of the poor people
of London are carried out by train, and they camp for two or three
weeks in tents in the hop country.
[Sidenote: 43. Apple Tree in Bloom.]
[Sidenote: 44. Apple Blossom.]
This is an apple tree in blossom. Later in the year it will bear a
fruit which is used for the purpose of making a drink called cider.
There are whole orchards of such apple trees, presenting a very
beautiful sight in the spring-time when they are gay with blossom.
Here is a colour photograph of apple blossom; you may easily imagine
that when these flowers deck the trees the whole landscape is
brilliant, not so much with green, as with pink and white--indeed,
one of the great differences between England and the tropics is
that in addition to green there is so much brilliant colour in the
foliage. Not only have you these orchards of white and red, but the
grassy fields are at times all golden with flowers that are called
buttercups and daisies, and, as we shall see presently, the trees in
the autumn turn from green to brilliant shades of brown.
[Sidenote: 45. Apples.]
Here is a basket of apple fruit, each with a rosy cheek on its green
skin. In Britain other fruits take the place of the mango and guava,
which are unknown in the north.
[Sidenote: 46. Strawberries.]
[Sidenote: 47. Roses.]
Fruit is grown in large quantity for the markets of the great
town populations. Here in this slide is one of the finest of the
northern fruits, the strawberry, which you probably know. See how
it is coloured, like so many other things northern. And here is yet
another crop of England. The vast cities with their millions of
people--many of them well-to-do--demand in their houses the flowers
of the country. Therefore there are parts of England where not merely
corn and cattle, and not merely fruit, but also flowers are grown for
the supply of the towns. This is the best known of the flowers of
England, the rose, which grows also in other parts of the world, but
is pre-eminently the national emblem of England, and praised as such
in English poetry.
[Sidenote: 48. Hay-stack.]
Let us turn for a moment finally to a side of English life which
is different from all that we know here in the tropics. There are
seasons in Britain, not rainy seasons and dry seasons, but seasons
of heat and of cold. In the winter the vegetation stops growing, and
there is little food in the fields for the animals. Then all the life
of the land, animal and human, must be maintained by foresight, by
the storage of the fruits of summer, or by the import of supplies
from other countries. The cattle are kept alive by means of hay, that
is to say, of grass cut in the summer, dried in the sun, heaped into
hay-stacks, and there preserved until required in the winter. This is
a hay-stack laid by for the winter supply of the animals.
[Sidenote: 49. Beech--Autumn Tints.]
When the hay and the corn have been harvested and the apples have
been gathered and turned to cider, and the roses have bloomed, and
the strawberries have been eaten or boiled to jam, then the summer
wanes, and a change sets in. Day by day, as September and October
pass, the green leaves of the trees gradually turn to all manner of
brilliant hues of red and brown, and presently, as the rains and the
winds increase, they fall and litter all the ground as we see them
here. At last, in November, the trees become naked, and show the
tracery of their branches against the sky.
[Sidenote: 50. Park--Autumn Tints.]
[Sidenote: 51. River Scene with Autumnal Beeches.]
There are few more splendid natural scenes than those of the fall
of the northern year. Let us look at one or two more of them
photographed in colour. This is an English park in the autumn, and
this a wood by a river bank.
[Sidenote: 52. Virginia Creeper.]
[Sidenote: 53. Hughenden Church--Autumn creepers.]
Many English houses are covered with creepers which are green in
the summer and then turn to red--to blood-red at times--before the
leaves finally drop and leave the house naked. This is the Virginia
Creeper, which did not originally grow in Britain, but was brought
from America. And here is a church clothed with red Virginia Creeper.
Green ivy is a creeper native to Britain. It clothes with green many
old buildings throughout the winter, because its leaves are like
leather, and thick, and can withstand the cold.
[Sidenote: 54. Leafless Elm Trees.]
This is a December landscape. The trees have shed their leaves,
and their naked boughs are clear against the sky. See the bleak
appearance of the land, so that you may look over miles and miles of
open country, though it is studded with many trees. To the eye of one
accustomed to the tropical forest, England in the winter time is a
naked and strange land.
[Sidenote: 55. Cottage, Winter Scene.]
[Sidenote: 56. Winter Scene in Wood.]
[Sidenote: 57. Frozen Lake side with hoar-frost.]
[Sidenote: 58. Hockey on ice.]
There are times when the cold is such that the rain is frozen and
falls in hard stones, known as hail, and there are other times when
the clouds themselves freeze, and then there fall white snow-flakes
like little feathers, which accumulate on the ground, covering it
with a white carpet which melts into water and disappears when the
weather grows warm again. Here is a country cottage half buried in
snow, and the snow is on the road and on the branches of the trees.
And here is a wood-side, hung not with snow, but with hoar-frost. You
know how dew stands on the leaves in the early morning. In Britain,
in the winter time, the dew clings to the branches not as liquid
water, but as a white feathery substance like snow, and yet it is not
snow, for it has not fallen from the clouds in flakes, but has been
formed from the air around, and clings by little stalks to all the
branches, surrounding them and clothing them. Here is yet another
scene of hoar-frost. The surface of the pool is frozen over, and has
a covering of hard ice. All the ground is hard like iron; men cannot
dig with spades, and even horses cannot draw the plough through the
ground. The cattle are gathered into the sheds of the farms, where
they are fed upon the hay which was saved for them in the summer. The
nights are very long and the days are short--not like the tropical
day and night, each approximately twelve hours in length. Even poor
men must now be idle, and many spend time in active sports. Here, for
instance, the game of hockey is being played on the ice, which is
strong enough to bear people upon it safely. Here is one of the roots
of the energy of the British race; it is bred in a climate which is
warm enough for men to work in through most of the year but with
every now and then a spell of frost, which appears to stimulate human
activity. On the other hand the heat of the summer is rarely such
that men must rest in the middle of the day.
[Sidenote: 59. Skating.]
These men are skating on the ice which is very smooth. That they may
glide the more easily they put skates on their feet--sharp steel
edges which slip so easily that it requires some skill to stand upon
them. It is an exhilarating sight to see men and women moving with
the speed of railway trains, the blood aglow in their cheeks and
their eyes flashing with pleasure.
[Sidenote: 60. Curling.]
In Scotland men play the game of curling upon ice. The weights glide
over the surface instead of rolling like balls.
[Sidenote: 61. Thames frozen over.]
Lastly, we have a very curious scene. Once in every few years there
comes a colder winter than usual, and then even the running water of
considerable rivers will freeze. Here is the Thames frozen completely
over and bearing many people.
LECTURE VI.
THE GREAT TOWNS, THEIR INDUSTRIES AND COMMERCE.
[Sidenote: 1. Group of Tin Miners.]
[Sidenote: 2. Tin Mine Shaft.]
[Sidenote: 3. Four Hundred Fathom Level, Dolcoath.]
[Sidenote: 4. Tin Mine Boring Machine.]
[Sidenote: 5. In a Tin Mine.]