The farm we this day
visited was one of more importance than the last. Four hundred acres
of ground surrounded a well-built house, two stories high, and
covering much ground. In such a dwelling a handsome piano is seldom
missing, and here stood one in the inner drawing-room. Luxuries that
could be purchased for money were not wanting, but labourers were not
so easily procured, and the contrast between the interior of the
house and the rough approach to it was most remarkable.
"So much must necessarily be done with so few hands, that time for a
flower-garden, or even the making of a neat footpath, cannot be
found. The mistress of the house looked sadly worn and wearied from
want of help in her indoor labours.
"Within easy reach of this house stood a much smaller one, built by
the owner of the farm for himself and his wife to retire to whenever
their eldest son should choose a bride and undertake the farm. This I
have seen elsewhere in Canada and have also known the heir of the
property to go out for the day helping at another farm, where no
labourer could be found in the neighbourhood. No contrast could be
greater to one coming from the sight of the constant distress in the
crowded East of London,--distress arising from want of work, food,
light, air, and room to live and breathe in, and the comfort here
beheld and experienced through the abundance of all; the pure fresh
air, the sight of 'God's blessings growing out of our mother earth,'
the ground ready to bestow so rich a return for all the labour
bestowed on it, and the only want that of the human hands--the hands
that, in our own land, are to be had so easily, that human beings are
expected to work like machines, and human frames are used as though
made of brass or iron.
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