culture of their mind and manners have been more radical than any obtained in the training of flowers or plants. Indeed the improvements effected have been more like transformations than developments. Our landlord, who had been indefatigable in producing these changes for the better, described to us the means employed. He said that thirty years ago a shocking state of things existed in the village. Enville, from time immemorial, had been celebrated for its cherries; and a cherry fair had been held in the village always on Sunday during the season. Great multitudes came to it, not only from towns adjoining but all through the Black Country. To obtain a supply of cherries was only a side and secondary motive; the real one being a boisterous, roistering, ring-fighting and cock-fighting holiday, with the usual amount of drunkenness and demoralization. He had known thirty regular prize-ring fights on a single Sunday, generally extemporized on the spot and spur of the moment. This demoralizing fair had become one of the fixed institutions of the district, a vested interest of the mass in old British furious fun. To break up this institution root and branch unconditionally, would have doubtless produced a riot. No civil or religious authorities attempted this; but the better-minded people of the village effected a partial transformation of the holiday and its sports by a substitute which the fair-frequenters
