was out at heel, having neither needles nor worsted, nor the power of using them, they had no other resource but to tie the hole together.  They had no idea of washing and dressing, and consequently must want clean linen, or stockings, and every other article of clean apparel, till a woman could be heard of, and bribed to assist them.  The consequence was, that it was cheaper to buy new articles than either wash or mend the old.  It is doubtful whether many had not omitted to learn to shave themselves, or to provide razors or strops, or even scissors.

Then as to baking bread, or cooking the humblest meal, they were equally at a loss.  They seem to have had no idea of the humblest grate, or even of a flat and easily-cleaned stone for a hearth; and so, having kneaded their ‘damper,’ it is never said how they thrust it in the ashes till it was partially heated, and comparatively fit to be eaten.  They have mutton, and mutton only; but how cooked is equally unknown.  It is not known that they have any apparatus whatever, stew or frying pan, or even a hook and string.  Yet the natives of Scotland may have seen many things nicely baked by means of a hot hearthstone below, a griddle with live coals above, and burning turf all round.  A single pot with water is a boiler; with the juice of the meat, or little more, a stew-pan; or merely surrounded by fire, an oven:  but it is believed many have not that single pot.  Even the cheap crock that holds salted meat might also be turned into a pudding-dish; and such a vessel as that which of old held the ashes of the dead, and now occasionally holds salt, the French peasant often turns into a pot-au-feu—­a pot for boiling his soup—­and makes that soup out of docks and nettles collected by the wayside, with a little meal—­delicious if seasoned with salt and a scrap of meat, or a well-picked lark or sparrow, or even a nicely-skinned and washed thigh of a frog!

The natives of New Holland themselves get fat upon serpents well-killed—­that is, with the heads adroitly cut off, so as not to suffer the poison to go through the body; or upon earth or tree worms nicely roasted.  The Turks roast their kebabs—­something near to mutton-chops—­by holding them to the fire on skewers.  But the inhabitants of Great Britain, accustomed to comforts unknown to any other part of the world, are, when deprived of these comforts, the most helpless in the world.

The natives of Ireland might be supposed to be excellent subjects for emigration, for at home they have often only straw and rags for beds, stones for seats, and one larger in the middle for a table; while the basket or ‘kish’ that washes the potatoes, receives them again when boiled:  so that the pot and basket are the only articles of furniture.  Simplicity beyond this is hardly conceivable:  there is but one step beyond it—­wanting the pot, and throwing the potatoes, however cooked, broadcast upon the stone-table; and this is possible by roasting