All the small country arts of life which once added to the little pleasures of country people were lost.

The country produce which passed through the hands of the husbandmen never got so far as their mouths.

Incredible shabbiness and niggardly pinching reigned over the fields and acres which, in spite of the rude and careless husbandry of the times, were so kind and bountiful.

Had you any inkling of all this ?" "I have heard that it was so," said I "but what followed ?" "The change," said Hammond, "which in these matters took place very early in our epoch, was most strangely rapid.

People flocked into the country villages, and, so to say, flung themselves upon the freed land like a wild beast upon his prey; and in a very little time the villages of England were more populous than they had been since the fourteenth century, and were still growing fast.