In referring our readers, henceforth, to All the Year Round, we can
but assure them afresh, of our unwearying and faithful service, in
what is at once the work and the chief pleasure of our life.
Through all that we are doing, and through all that we design to do,
our aim is to do our best in sincerity of purpose, and true devotion
of spirit.
We do not for a moment suppose that we may lean on the character of
these pages, and rest contented at the point where they stop. We
see in that point but a starting-place for our new journey; and on
that journey, with new prospects opening out before us everywhere,
we joyfully proceed, entreating our readers--without any of the pain
of leave-taking incidental to most journeys--to bear us company All
the year round.
Saturday, May 28, 1859.
THE POOR MAN AND HIS BEER
My friend Philosewers and I, contemplating a farm-labourer the other
day, who was drinking his mug of beer on a settle at a roadside ale-
house door, we fell to humming the fag-end of an old ditty, of which
the poor man and his beer, and the sin of parting them, form the
doleful burden. Philosewers then mentioned to me that a friend of
his in an agricultural county--say a Hertfordshire friend--had, for
two years last past, endeavoured to reconcile the poor man and his
beer to public morality, by making it a point of honour between
himself and the poor man that the latter should use his beer and not
abuse it.
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