) in fire crackers alone, and my informant went on to
say that the only case he knew of where marriage had been really
successful was that of the fair-haired carpenter, who was married and
asked all the bosses on the place, who each gave something, with which
he was able to buy a sewing machine for the eldest girl, then aged six.
But, mark you, lest you should judge them lightly, remember that their
unwritten pact is just as binding to them as our formal marriage tie is
to us, and that in their way they are probably better husbands and
fathers than your Balham clerk. In their young days they may chop and
change, which changes are generally marked by little iron crosses in the
woods, but, once they have settled down, desertion is far rarer than in
civilised countries. I have seen a native workman with his shoulder
blade in his arm-pit, his face cut to ribbons, and with pieces of
casting sticking to his back through the carrying away of a crane, cavil
against the idea of being taken into the township where the doctor was,
lest his old woman, unused to a town life, should find the surroundings
uncongenial. This in a broken, muttered whisper, twelve hours after the
accident had happened, during which time every new arrival had been
called upon to witness the peculiar nature of his injuries.
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