Having, with great warmth and earnestness, used these arguments, he concluded, by plainly hinting to his wife that she had always been the apologist of the tailor, in all their disputes; and that she could not be so obstinately blind to the irrefragable reasoning he had urged, if she were not influenced by her old hankering after this fellow, and did not consult his interests in preference to those of her own family.  Upon this remark the old woman took fire, and, in spite of our presence, they both had recourse to direct and the coarsest abuse.

The Brahmin did not, as I expected, join me in laughing at the scene we had just witnessed; but, after some musing, observed:  “There is much truth in what each of these parties say.  I blame them only for the course they take towards each other.  Their dispute is, in fact, of a most frivolous and unmeaning character; for, if the father was to carry his point, the girls would occasionally sell the productions of their garden, and pay for making their clothes, or even buy them ready made.  Were the mother, on the other hand, to prevail, they would still occasionally use their needles, and exercise their taste and skill in sewing, spinning, knitting, and the like.  Nay,” added he, “if you had not been so much engrossed with this angry and indecorous altercation, you might have seen two of them at their needles, in an adjoining apartment, while one was busy at work in the garden, and another up to the elbows in the soap-suds—­all so closely engaged in their several pursuits, that they hardly seemed to know they were the subject of discussion.”

I told the Brahmin that a dispute, not unlike this, had taken place in my own country, a few years since; some of our politicians contending that agricultural labour was most conducive to the national wealth, whilst others maintained that manufacturing industry was equally advantageous, wherever it was voluntarily pursued;—­but that the controversy had lately assumed a different character—­the question now being, not whether manufactures are as beneficial as agriculture, but whether they deserve extraordinary encouragement, by taxing those who do not give them a preference.

“That is,” said the Brahmin, “as if our landlady, by way of inducing her daughters to give up gardening for spinning, were to tell them, if they did not find their new occupation as profitable as the old, she would more than make up the difference out of her own pocket, which, though it might suit the daughters very well, would be a losing business to the family.”

CHAPTER XIII.

Description of the Happy Valley—­The laws, customs, and manners of the Okalbians—­Theory of population—­Rent—­System of government.