ed them. They were miserably ill-clothed, and the huts in which they lived were dirty and mean, beyond description. How different from their present situation! They now enjoy the necessaries, and many of the comforts, of life, in abundance; even those who are supported by the charity of the parish feel no real want." The southern counties presented the same picture of sloth, poverty, and wretchedness. The late Rev. Mr. Smith, in his' Agricultural Survey of Wigtown and Kirkcudbright,' published in 1810, gives, on authority of persons "now living," the following details, with respect to the state of husbandry, and the condition of the people, towards the middle of the last century: "Estates appear to have been broken down into very small farms; or, where these were large, they were held in common, by two, three, or even four, different tenants, who divided the labor and produce in a proportion corresponding to their rent. These, when in tillage, were sometimes run-rigg, when each had his proportion allotted; sometimes, the whole was ploughed, sowed, and reaped, in common, and the produce divided in the field, barn, or barn-yard. Houses or sheds, for the whole cattle of the farm, never entered into their conception. Their cows were indeed not uncomfortably lodged; very often under the same roof with themselves, and sometimes without any intervening wall or partition. Their houses were commonly wretched, dirty hovels, built with stones and mud; thatched with fern and turf; without chimneys; filled with smoke; black with soot; having low doors, and small holes for windows, with wooden shutters, or, in place of these, often stopped with turf, straw, or fragments of old clothes. "The principal object of tillage was to afford straw for the Winter support of the few cattle which the pasture (if such it could be called) maintained in SumAs they always overstocked, this was a difficult task; and the poor starved animals, before the return of Spring, were reduced to the greatest extremities. mer. Through mere weakness, often they could not rise of themselves. It was a constant practice to gather together neighbors to lift the cows or horses, or to draw. them out of the bogs and quagmires into which they were tempted by the first appearances of vegetation. "Nothing, but the frugal, penurious manner in which the peasantry then lived, could have enabled them to subsist and pay any rent whatever. Their clothing was of the coarsest materials; their furniture and gardening utensils were often made by themselves; their food, always the produce of their farms, was little expensive, consisting chiefly of oat-meal, vegetables, and the produce of the dairy; if a little animal food was occasionally added, it was generally the refuse of the flock, unfit to be brought to market." The situation even of the Lothians was but little better. So late as 1757, neither turnips, potatoes, clover, nor cultivated herbage of any sort, had been introduced into that district. The condition of the occupiers and of the peasantry was also exceedingly depressed. It is stated by Mr. Robertson, that, so late as 1765, mendicity in the Lothians was so very prevalent, that hardly a day passed, in which farm-houses were not visited by beggars, and hardly a week, without some of them getting a night's lodging in the barn.-' Rural Recollections.' Such was the abject state of Scotland, about the middle of the last century! And we are bold to say, that the contrast between the savages, by whom Kentucky was formerly occupied, and its present civilized inhabitants, is hardly greater than the contrast between the farmers and laborers of Scotland, in 1770, and those of the present day. The existing Scotch farmers are distinguished by their superior intelligence and skill in agriculture, the excellence of their stock and implements, and their genteel, comfortable style of living. The laborers, too, are universally well fed, and well clothed; their cottages are generally comfortable and well furnished; and they are all in the enjoyment of luxuries, that formerly were never tasted, even by the most extensive proprietors. The demand for butchers' meat, in Scotland, has increased, in the most extraordinary manner. So late as 1763, the slaughter of bullocks, for the supply of the public markets, was a thing wholly unknown, even in Glasgow, though the city had then a population of nearly thirty thousand! Previously to 1775, or perhaps later, it was customary in Edinburgh, Glasgow, and the principal Scotch towns, for families to purchase, in November, what would now be reckoned a small, miserable, half-fed cow or ox, the salted carcass of which was the only butchers' meat they tasted throughout the year. In the smaller towns and country districts this practice prevailed, till the present century; but it is now almost every where abandoned. The consumption of butchers' meat in Glasgow, as compared with the population, does not at present differ materially from that of the metropolis. We do not indeed believe that the command of the people of any country over food and all sorts of conveniences, ever increased, in any equal period, half so rapidly as that of the people of Scotland has done, since 1770.Mc Culloch's Statistics. III. UNITED STATES. An aged friend states, that fifty-five years ago, in Connecticut, a substantial farmer used tea very rarely, in his family, coffee never; that wheaten bread was brought on the table only on the most remarkable occasions; that there were no carpets or umbrellas; that almost the entire raiment worn was of domestic manufacture, being coarse linen or woollen; that there were no wheel-carriages used, except that now and then a very considerable person rode in a one-horse chaise, of two wheels, and rude construction; that all travelling was on foot or horseback; that there was no stagecoach or public conveyance for passengers; that the principal food was beans, pork, and Indian bread ; that hardly any sugar was used, except that made from the maple tree of the woods, nor any molasses, except what they extracted from cornstalks; that hardly any cooking utensils were used, except a frying-pan and iron pot; and that they ate almost invariably off of wooden trenchers, and drank tea, in most cases, out of wooden cups. Any person acquainted with the habits of this class of people, now, will see at once, that the change, which, within half a century, has taken place in their condition, is immense. Wooden bowls and cups have given place to cheap, cleanly, and oftentimes to elegant, earthen-ware and porcelain; the inmates of the family are clothed with materials gathered from all quarters of the world, and wrought into warm, delicate fabrics in the looms of England, France, and America; wheaten bread is considered an indispensable article of daily consumption; fresh meat is used almost daily, and sugar in abundance; the potato, and other garden vegetables, are cultivated universally, and form a grateful and cheap addition to the meal, throughout the year; tea and coffee are regarded as indispensable; few families are without umbrellas and carpets; and every farmer must have his pleasure wagon. A newspaper of Albany, bearing date in 1797, is now before me; and, among many other advertisements, indicating the state of society at that time, I find cotton thread is advertised by one person as a new article, and peculiarly valuable, because it had been spun in Rhode Island, by water. It is to be presumed, that, at this time, there was no cotton factory in the State of New York; and that spinning by water had just commenced in our Country. IV. NOTICES OF THE MODE OF LIVING IN ENGLAND, PRE- To enable the reader to extend the comparison between the past and present state of the arts in England, some further notices are added. 1. England, in the Reign of Henry the Seventh. The household book of the Duke of Northumberland, edited by Bishop Percy, may give us some notion of the mode of life in the noblest and most opulent families of England, at the beginning of the sixteenth century. The number of persons in the establishment was about two hundred and twenty, of whom something over fifty were strangers or guests, daily provided for. The average expense of meat, drink, and fire, for each person, was reckoned at two pence and a halfpenny per day, which Hume supposes would be equivalent to about fourteen pence in his time. These items formed two thirds of the whole expense of the establishment. The frugality, with which the household was managed, appears from the fact, that no servant could be absent a day, without having his mess struck off; the number of pieces which must be cut from every quarter of beef, mutton, pork, or veal, and even from fish, are determined, and must be entered or accounted for, by the different clerks appointed for that purpose; no capons or other poultry were allowed, except "for my lord's own mess,' nor were plovers to be bought even for that purpose, except "in Christmas and principal feasts; and my lord to be served therewith, and none other, and to be bought for a penny a piece, or a penny half penny, at most.” وو The luxuries enjoyed may be inferred from the fact, that the family had fresh meat only from midsummer to Michaelmas, (September twenty-ninth), living all the rest of the year on salted meat, with few or no vegetables; that no sheets were used; that only forty shillings are allowed for washing throughout the whole year, most of which seems to have been expended on the linen belonging to the chapel; that only seventy ells of linen, at eight pence a yard, are annually allowed for this great family, this linen being made into eight tablecloths for my lord's table, and one table-cloth for the |