96 



Tlie Country Gentlcmaii s iMagazine 



measure, and, as the majority of men who 

 occupy the cottages and bothies seem to pre- 

 fer money payments to the perquisites they 

 have been in the habit of receiving, the far- 

 mer need not object, as everything his farm 

 produces is as good as money to him now-a- 

 days. 



The agricultural labourers in several parts 

 of England, notably Warwickshire, are not 

 demanding much if indeed any more in 

 respect of wages than their northern brethren 

 have enjoyed for several years, and were it 

 not that a concatenation of circumstances 

 (pointed out in a previous article) have 

 practically set the tenancy of land beyond 

 the grasp of the great bulk of hired 

 labourers in this district, we should be 

 inclined to say they had no particular neces- 

 sity for increased wages. Considering, then, 

 that in the majority of cases the northern 

 field labourer has now only what he can save 

 of his annual earnings to stand between him 

 and the poor-house in the evening of life, 

 it seems desirable that the wages should be 

 advanced. But the great difficulty is, can 

 the farmers, with their high and rising rents, 

 and expensive farming otherwise, afford a 

 material advance to the farm-servants ? This 

 point does not come legitimately within the 

 scope of the article, but we may be pardoned 

 for giving it as our opinion that the northern 

 farmer cannot give any sensible increase of 

 wages to his servants and make*ends meet. 

 In these circumstances, and remembering that 

 the farm labourer in the district embraced 

 in this article is already more than averagely 

 well remunerated, we would regard it as 

 politic if the hired ones were to press 

 the matter very gently on the employers. 

 The pay scale of farm-servants is by far too 

 uniform. It should be more graded, in order 

 to reward merit properly, which is very desir- 

 able in all professions. The proposed 

 change in the system of engagement would 

 have a tendency to bring about this desidera- 

 tum. Females employed at farm-work are 

 very inadequately paid. They receive only 

 from ;£6 to ;£% a-year, with their board and 

 lodgings. This is barely a-third of the wages 

 paid to men. They should at least have 



half as much as the fees given to males, and 

 were not the demands on their purses lighter 

 than those on the masculine side, we should 

 suggest even a closer approximation, believing 

 that the work performed would warrant it. 



It would be difficult to disguise the facts 

 that much of the sitting and more of the 

 sleeping accommodation for servants in the 

 counties embraced by this report, if not in the 

 most of Scotland, is totally unworthy of the 

 human race. The matter of better house ac- 

 commodation, we are convinced, is the 

 strongest point in the recent demands of the 

 servants. In this respect, they — or some of 

 them — have really good reason to agitate for 

 an improvement, andthas far, atanyrate, every 

 unprejudiced man conversantwith the existing 

 state of matters will cordially sympathize with 

 the movement. The bothies have had a long 

 reign in the counties of Forfar, Kincardine, 

 Aberdeen, Banff, and Moray, and when pro- 

 perly constructed, they do not prove so un- 

 comfortable and demoralizing as has often 

 been laid to their charge — that is to say, 

 when the bothy is regularly cleaned and 

 meals cooked by a female, and when the 

 foreman is a man who can maintain order 

 and decorum. In many of the bothies in the 

 Angus and Mearns, and Strathmore districts 

 — the centre of such institutions — arrange- 

 ments as above have existed successfully for 

 a considerable number of years, but there are, 

 and have long been, not a few bothies in these 

 districts, as well as farther north, where the 

 internal arangements have an unfavourable 

 effect, physically, socially, and morally. 

 More cottages should be erected on or near 

 the farms ; but at this stage the farmer con- 

 siders the landlord should come to the front,, 

 and relieve him in a great measure, so that 

 progress in this really deserving cause is slow, 

 as it invariably is where a multiplicity of inte- 

 rests are involved. 



On sev^eral estates in the north — notably 

 the Duke of Richmond's, and Mr Gordon's 

 (of Cluny) — cottages have recently been con- 

 structed in considerable numbers, but there 

 is yet a great deal to do. The last-named pro- 

 prietor builds cottages to his tenants for the 

 use of servants, and charges only 3 per cent. 



