with that.

Let me try and give something of the quality of Bromstead and

something of its history. It is the quality and history of a

thousand places round and about London, and round and about the

other great centres of population in the world. Indeed it is in a

measure the quality of the whole of this modern world from which we

who have the statesman's passion struggle to evolve, anddream still

of evolving order.

First, then, you mustthink of Bromstead a hundred and fifty years

ago, as a narrow irregular little street of thatched houses strung

out on the London and Dover Road, a little mellow sample unit of a

social order that had a kind of completeness, at its level, of its

own. At that time its population numbered a little under two

thousand people, mostly engaged in agricultural work or in trades

serving agriculture. There was a blacksmith, a saddler, a chemist,

a doctor, a barber, a linen-draper (who brewed his own beer); a

veterinary surgeon, a hardware shop, and two capacious inns. Round

and about it were a number ofpleasant gentlemen's seats, whose

owners went frequently to London town in their coaches along the

very tolerable high-road. The church was big enough to hold the

whole population, were peopleminded to go to church, and indeed a

large proportion did go, and all who married were married in it, and

everybody, to begin with, was christened at its font and buried at

last in its yew-shaded graveyard. Everybodyknew everybody in the

place. It was, in fact, a definite place and areal human community

in those days. There was apleasant old market-house in the middle

of the town with a weekly market, and an annual fair at which much

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