Page:Hannah More (1887 Charlotte Mary Yonge British).djvu/123

Rh Mrs. Trimmer's Instructive Tales, and there were not enough of these, nor was the volume cheap enough, to supply what was needed. The council of sisters therefore came to a decision to produce three tracts a month, stories, ballads, and religious readings, at so cheap a rate as to undersell the revolutionary publications. It could not be done except at a heavy loss, and the labour prevented remunerative literary undertakings, but the want was felt to be so great that the sacrifice was willingly made. The Duke of Gloucester (that brother of George III. who had married the Countess of Waldegrave), Bishop Porteous, Wilberforce and others, assisted in the expenses of publication. The pamphlets were printed at Bath, on paper and with illustrations hideous to modern eyes, but which did not trouble the minds of the eighteenth century. They were termed "Cheap Repository Tracts," and stallkeepers and hawkers were persuaded and bribed to take a stock of them, and they went off most rapidly. Foremost was The Shepherd of Salisbury Plain, which incidentally reveals many curious facts about the condition of the poor. The Shepherd of Salisbury Plain, the model of courtesy, who is, we are told, a portrait from the life, has eight children and six shillings a week to keep them on. "Only three" under five years old. At that age, they begin to earn a half-penny, and afterwards a penny a day by knitting, the boys go out "crow-keeping" or stone-picking, and they