id="Page_46" class="x-ebookmaker-pageno" title="[Pg 46]"/> judge can look. The clerk of the court read the Queen's proclamation against vice and immorality; solemnly called upon the magistrates and sheriffs of counties to use all their power to suppress all kinds of vice and lewdness, especially Sabbath breaking; and yet the judge could not allow the double rap at his door to cease on a Sunday.

I got on capitally with this lady; we seemed to understand each other at first sight. But do what I would, I could not bring myself to feel the respect due to her, simply because she wore a pair of old and dirty wooden shoes, a short, rough woollen skirt, a great red-patterned kerchief over her shoulders, and a large, stiff, white muslin cap on her head. Altogether she cut such a figure, that I could not fancy she was the wife of a rich merchant and judge. But I found after a while that the ladies of Jersey were exceedingly plain and unassuming. They assisted in house and dairy work; they milked and fed the cows. It was a very common thing to see the farmers' wives and daughters milk cows into one can, and goats into another; then, tying the cans together and slinging them across an old horse's back, they would perch themselves on the top, and set off to town at five o'clock in the morning, to sell the milk from door to door. They returned to breakfast and spent the remainder of the day working in the fields. I saw them, both in Jersey and in France, actually ploughing, sowing, reaping and mowing; and yet these people were rich and had their thousands in the bank. After witnessing how hard the women had to work in Jersey and France, I was not surprised that Napoleon I. said that England was a paradise for women.

I continued in the employ of the judge all the summer. My usual work was to adulterate the wine, brandy, gin, rum, and whisky; and though constantly amongst this firewater, I am thankful to say I did not acquire the taste for any of it. Yet all who worked there could have what they liked. The judge gave carte blanche. I often thought what a paradise this would have been for Jim, how he would have made himself a perfect walking swill-tub; but it would have soon killed him. I watched many strong sturdy fellows from Devon and Cornwall actually kill themselves with the accursed stuff. Not that they were drunkards; nothing of the sort. But because brandy could be purchased at sixpence a bottle, so they would constantly be sipping it. They did not get drunk, but would take a little in winter to keep the cold out, and a little more in summer to keep out the heat; they would soon get "brain fever," or as some people would say, sunstroke, and die ramping mad. I have seen and known this in many cases both of men and women.