United States or Gabon ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !


The poverty of India has for a good many years been a handy weapon, like the sailor's belaying pin, for everyone who wanted to "have at" our administration of that country; and if "a lie which is half a truth is ever the blackest of lies," then this one must be as black as Tartarus, for it is indubitably more than half a truth. The common field-labourer in India is about as poor as man can be.

Indeed, it had always been a matter of congratulation to Mrs Stirling that this "leaven of pride" prevented Lilias's absolute perfection; but now, to see "that delicate lassie, so bonny and gentle, more fit for the manse parlour or the drawing-room at Pentlands than any other place," to see her so utterly unmindful of pride or station, wishing so eagerly, for the sake of those she loved, to become a herd-girl or a field-labourer, quite disarranged all Nancy's ideas.

Not that his tunic and mantle were of richer materials than those of his comrades; plain and dusty with travel were the sandals upon his feet, and he wore the simple white turban which a field-labourer might have worn. But never had turban been folded around a more majestic brow, and the form wrapped in the mantle had the unconscious dignity which marks those born to command.

He told us that his name was Macco, that he was born in Madagascar, at a village in the north of that large island. With several lads from the same village he had gone on board a vessel which had carried them to the Mauritius. There he had worked as a field-labourer for some time, and though not a slave, treated very little better than one.

Physical strength, intelligence and an innate desire of amassing dollars, are three essential qualifications for a good tobacco cooly, and, so far, they have only been found united in the Chinaman, the European being out of the question as a field-labourer in the tropics.

During five consecutive days Henchard's rush basket rode along upon his shoulder between the highway hedges, the new yellow of the rushes catching the eye of an occasional field-labourer as he glanced through the quickset, together with the wayfarer's hat and head, and down-turned face, over which the twig shadows moved in endless procession.

Even our passionate artizan-nature, so sensitive and voluble in general, in comparison with the cold reserve of the field-labourer and the gentleman, was hushed in silent awe between the thought of the past and the thought of the future. We felt ourselves trembling between two worlds.

"No; and he'll never ken as much as is for his good, if it depends on you. But he'll hear something ere he's many days older." "Mrs Stirling," said Lilias, rising, and speaking very quietly now, "you must not meddle between me and my brother. He is all I have got; and I know him best. He never was meant for a herd-boy or a field-labourer.

"Great heaven!" exclaimed Reginald, "how happy these peasants are these brutish creatures who have no care beyond their daily bread!" He envied them; and at that moment would have exchanged places with the humblest field-labourer carousing in the rustic tap-room. But it was only now and then the anguish of a guilty conscience took this shape.

"Why, we have his photograph in our album! Only he looks much nicer there. Such a Lord Byron face!" "Well, this is really audacious!" cried Siegfried, "with such a face to appear before ladies! Coarse and stubby like that of a Slav field-labourer, and yet such a young lady as that calls it a Lord Byron face!