28 JUNE 1930, Page 17

A RURAL GENERALIZATION.

The other day a prize for the best county story went to a Herefordshire reader of the Spectator. In that same most rural county last week I had a report of a rural conversation most humorously typical of the cast of thought in the peasant mind. A cow that had fallen into the ditch by the roadside was being rescued by a gang when an old woman passed by and stopped to watch ; and this is what she said, spacing her phrases carefully : "Well, to be sure—was there ever-- such a year—for cows—falling on their backs—in ditches— as this ! " • She then proceeded by a tale of other experiences of cows in ditches to justify her generalization, a form of thought and speech to which the rural mind is peculiarly