IN THE LAND OF PEACHES.

MILFORD, DELAWARE.

No place can be more plainly unassuming, or a more typical country town than Milford, notwithstanding the fact that it has a population of three thousand, being next in this particular to Wilmington. It was settled by Parson Thorne, an English clergyman, also a Tory. He built the Episcopal Church, the actual imported bricks of which are still standing, though the interior shows the result of many modern repairs. It seems strange that while the town was settled by a clergyman of the English Church, that the State of Delaware, and Milford especially, should be the cradle of Methodism. Not far from Milford, about seven miles, stands a low-roofed English brick church, founded more than a hundred years ago by one Barrett, from whom it derives the name, Barrett Chapel. Here the Methodists, Coke and Ashbury, the former appointed to his charge by Wesley himself, first officiated and laid the foundation of the Methodist faith in Delaware. The houses are mostly square, three-storied, and double, and many of them built of brick, more than a century ago, and it is only within the last few years that gas has been introduced, few of the residents having it in their houses even now. There is an air of solid comfort and refinement about the place that is at once assuring of the genial home-life and hearty hospitalities that one never fails in finding; and, being only six miles from the Delaware Bay, has the full benefit of the salt air, and is known to be so healthy that physicians have little opportunity for practice.

The town is an odd mixture of Southern and Northern customs, people and characteristics. The negro smiles at you from every corner, and the little " blackies" can be seen scrambling over the broad piazzas of the very mansions where, not many years before, their parents had served as slaves. Sometimes a pair of little black legs are seen dangling from the upper step, whilst the body and head are thrust into the hall, finding an eager interest in the detailed occurrences of the household affairs. Naturally, a stranger looks astonishment at this, so frequent an event that no one apparently thinks of it. At the luxurious and hospitable home where I am staying, which, though it is one of the oldest houses, has been built with its thick walls and heavy wood-work, that it is to-day more substantial than many a modern home, there are still standing on the premises the old frame quarters where lived the numerous family slaves. These houses

IN THE LAND OF PEACHES.

are now used as stables, and work or storing-rooms, and one still serves as sleeping-apartment for the present coloured helps, who are paid members of the same family that were once part and parcel of the household furniture and personal property. The cook is the same cook of the years before the war, only now she is married; aged, "housekeeping" for herself, and "educating" her children. This "educating" and "housekeeping" business are the high ambition of the "darks," and their manner of carrying it out is quite novel; the educating, for the most part, a little time in school, and considerable time on the streets, and the housekeeping, owning a house, being away working elsewhere all day, and earning money enough to support, perhaps, a lazy husband and idle children. However, there are many happy families, and their love for their old homes is so great and so enduring, that at the holidays, especially at Christmas times, they flock in numbers, from distant cities even, to spend the day with " Massa or Missus." They never have any money to take them back, and to get rid of ten or fifteen, and to pay them all a present for they always prefer money-is sometimes a heavy drain on the purse of "Massa or Missus." But it is a custom that stands to this day. In Delaware though-let it be writ to her credit-slaves had comparatively an easy time; they were not locked in at night by the closed porte cochere as in Cuba, or kept in painful, hopeless bondage, as in the far South, but were generally manumitted at the ages of twenty-five and twenty-eight. Slave-owners, seeming to feel the injustice of slavery, in their will made provision for the liberation of their most faithful servants, so that these poor creatures had something to look forward to, and were always among the most anxious, at the reading of a will, to learn its contents. Freedom was their badge of respectability, and some of them to-day will not admit to ever having been slaves, though nearly all of them in this part of the country were so except the younger branches, and many of these are indentured by their parents until they are " of age."

I have reached Delaware in the height of the peach season, when the trees are heavy with their beautiful and luscious burden, and the peach-growers are busy from morn till night overseeing the packing and transportation in baskets, crates, boxes, and waggons, on the ships and cars, sending them mostly to New York and Philadelphia. But what do we in cities know of either the beauty or lusciousness of this queen of fruits? For in order to

ship them away with any security, they must be picked while hard, and allowed to ripen on the way, or on the stalls in the markets. Here we have them bursting in the overflow of their luxuriance; here they ripen on the trees, and the last few hours that are left

IN THE LAND OF PEACHES.

them of their native hot southern sun to heighten their blush of crimson, and turn the last drops of sap into delicious nectarine juices. Then the Delaware peach is not only a thing of beauty, but a fragrant, luscious, tropical sweet. Delawarians are, justly, very proud of their peach orchards, and make no idle boast of their supremacy over New Jersey in this particular, as it is no unusual thing to find orchards in Delaware containing seventy-five thousand trees, the average being twenty thousand, whilst in New Jersey, two to five thousand are the largest. Undoubtedly, I thought, this must be a source of considerable income to the peachgrowers; but I am informed that the peach trade is like most other trades, in that it is generally a doubtful speculation to the producers, the "middle men," as usual, making the sure profits. These are the commission men who buy the fruit and sell it again without having the expense of paying hands to till the ground, pick the fruit, or express it to different cities. A peach-tree must be four years old before it bears, and there are always dangers of untimely frosts and heavy storms. Indeed from the time of first putting forth the early blossoms the tree is a source of anxiety to the grower, though if spared by the frost, storms, and pestering insects, it will bear fruit for fifteen or twenty years, when it must be replaced with those of newer growth. Strange as it may appear, an overcrop of the fruit has been considered almost as great a misfortune as a failure, for it ripens too fast to be picked, and the markets are glutted, while producers receive but a small pittance in return for the work of months. However, this is not so much the case now as formerly, as the canning and drying establishments, also the distilleries, are increasing in numbers all over the State, and there is a ready sale for fruit right on the producing ground, though at lower prices. One establishment in Dover-Richardson's & Robbin's, has two hundred hands working day and night, and they have already this season canned 4,500 baskets of Bartlett pears, to say nothing of the well-nigh incalculable quantity of peaches. We were informed that the amount of fruit alone prepared and preserved here yearly has been estimated at 30,000 cans, the estimate being entirely outside of the potted meats, game, poultry, soups, fish, etc., in which they carry on a large wholesale business. This firm exhibited at the late Paris Exhibition and received a golden medal, the highest prize,—and while in France they purchased, at the cost of hundreds of dollars, a number of recipes for preparing wild game and all kinds of meats, soups, etc., with truffles, olives, mushrooms, and herbs, for which the French cuisine is so famous. And think of sending to England cans and cans of "real old English plum-pudding"

A BENEFACTOR OF HIS RACE.

prepared in the little State of Delaware! In the winters of 1877 and 1878, seventeen thousands cans of this dainty were prepared and shipped. The boned turkey also from this establisment, while it is so much cheaper than that procured from the caterer, has been pronounced by epicures quite as good. The area of the peach country lies between the Delaware and Chesapeake bays, and Brandywine River and Cape Charles, and the shipment of the fruit averages from three to four millions of baskets yearly, besides the quantity canned, dried, and made into brandy both in Delaware and Maryland. In the canning and drying establishment, girls and women are mostly employed, and if they are efficient hands, they can make over a dollar daily, being paid so much a bucket, that is to say, four cents a bucket for tomatoes, and eight cents for a bucket of peaches, but it is hard and continuous work, commencing at seven in the morning until six in the evening, on at seven again until twelve o'clock at night. In addition to these, there are regular night-workers, who are not on duty at all during the day.

A BENEFACTOR OF HIS RACE.

THE death of Sir Rowland Hill took place on Sept. 2, 1879. He died an old man, full of years and of honours. Few men of our time have accomplished as much for the benefit of civilization as he has done, and rarely have reforms been so unanimously ascribed to the personal work of one man as was the case with the grand reform with which his name is associated. When we think of the great measure of free trade, which has unquestionably been of vast advantage to our country, we divide the honour of carrying it between Cobden, Bright, Sir Robert Peel, and others. The French Republic is the work of many hands. The abolition of American slavery was the result of long years of agitation, and enlisted a large number of earnest men. But the postal reform in England, which has led to the adoption of cheap and uniform mail communication the world over, was the work of Sir Rowland Hill. He devised it, he urged it, he secured its adoption, and to him belongs all the honour. Perhaps the most remarkable circumstance about it was the speedy victory. It was in 1837 that he published his first pamphlet on Post Office Reform, and launched his project. The next year it was considered by a special Committee of the House of Commons. In 1839, Parliament adopted his plan. In 1840, at the very beginning of the year, the reform went into full force. Thus, less than three years passed from the

TAKING ROOT.

first public suggestion of the scheme to its going into operation. The truth is, it was popular at the outset, and became more so as it was further considered. The special Committee of 1838, which had made its inquiries and reported within a year from the time Mr. Hill's pamphlet appeared, remarked that "in the opinion of all the witnesses, excepting most of the officers of the Post Office," the adoption of Mr. Hill's plan would increase largely the number of letters posted. The whole history of the reform might be inferred from that one sentence. Official conservatism was against it, but all the rest of the community favoured it. The wonderful success of the scheme converted the most incredulous of the Barnacles.

Sir Rowland reaped the reward of his labours. Five years after penny postage was established, a testimonal, in the shape of a check for £10,000, raised by popular subscription, was presented to him by a grateful people. Eighteen months later, in 1846, a further sum of £13,000 raised in the same way was added. Toward the close of the same year he took the office of secretary to the Postmaster-General, at a good salary, which he held for sixteen years and more. In 1860, he was knighted. When he resigned his office, 1863, his retirement was noticed in the House of Lords, where it was said of him that he had introduced and completed an improvement which had, perhaps, conferred more benefit upon mankind than any other invention. The following year, in accordance with a special message from the Queen, Parliament made him a grant of £20,000 in recognition of his services. these honours and remunerations for what he had done were spontaneously tendered and heartily approved. That a great benefit had been conferred nobody questioned, and it was a little disputed that, in ascribing it to this one man, the praise was rightly bestowed.

TAKING ROOT.

All

IN explaining the parable of the sower, Jesus speaks of some "who, when they hear the word, immediately receive it with gladness, but have no root in themselves, and are only for a time." How truly these words describe the condition of many who have attempted to follow the Lord in these days! The Christian life appears to such in the falsest possible light; they think that Christianity is something to play with-a toy for an idle hour-and this delusion is oftentimes so lasting that they allow their names to remain on the church-book till they die, without the faintest suspicion, apparently, that they ought not to have done so.