THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



115 



the master are miserably miscoiislvued, aud that schemes 

 •\vhicli have the labourer's good mainly in view, are looked 

 upon too often by. him with jealousy or indiflference. The 

 work to be done in carrying out this most important of 

 social reforms, must be mutually done. And sure am I 

 tliat, uo matter how much is done by the master, if the 

 servant does not aid by the cultivation of habits of self- 

 control, no real or lasting progi-ess will be made. The 

 movement will bo but spasmodic after all, and have no 

 real life-giving sustaining powers in it. Having offered 

 these preliminary remarks, not altogether unsuggestive as 

 I hope, I shall now proceed to take up seriatim the sub- 

 jects named in the aiTangement proposed. The first of 

 these claiming our attention is that of " The CoUuges or 

 Direlliii(/-houses of the Agricultural Labourer." While fully 

 admitting the urgencies of the claims of other depart- 

 ments of the subject, it is impossible to over-rate the im- 

 portance of this to which I am now to draw your atten- 

 tion. It stands second to none ; nay, a full investigation 

 of the subject in its entirety, makes it clear that good 

 house accommodation must precede all other movements 

 calculated to raise the position of the agricultural labourer 

 in the social scale. " As the houses, so the men," says an 

 authority upon sanitary matters : and there is miich truth 

 in it. The development of men in a moral as well .as a 

 physical sense, is undoubtedly greatly dependent upon the 

 condition in which he is housed. No more can physical 

 health be secured to the man lodged in a hovel, the 

 arrangement and constniction of which is so well calculated 

 to create discomfort and to cause disease, than to the animal 

 who is put up in a filthy ill-ventilated stable. And if it is 

 worth the labour involved in the better housing of our farm 

 stoclc, it is surely worth the labour to house well the work- 

 men who look after them — worth in a double sense ; for the 

 labourer has a higher organization, which requires to be 

 nurtured, and this cannot be done where everything sur- 

 roimding.thc man is calculated to disgust and to degrade. 

 By simply taking care of out-door education, if indeed we 

 do that, and ignoring altogether that of the hearth and 

 home — for the child's most effective training, whether 

 that be good or bad, is the work of the home — uo satisfac- 

 tory intellectual and moral elevation can result. In a 

 Christian land it is imperative that our labourers should 

 have a house fitted to be a Christian's home. It is pitiable 

 to have to say, in this nineteenth century highly-boasted- 

 of time of ours, that a vast detil has yet to be done before 

 this can be realized. It is from considerations such as 

 thesejthat the question of improved cottage accommodation 

 for rural districts is considered an all-important one — im- 

 portant in the sense that it is essential to get healthy 

 labourers capable of doing able work, as well as in the 

 higher sense, that it is essential both for their and our 

 sakes that they be morally and intellectually strong 

 as well. I have received a number of communications 

 from various parts of the coonti-y, on the subject of 

 cottage accommodation, and the testimony from all is 

 yearly complete, that as a general rule it is in any- 

 thing but an advanced condition. I here give extracts 

 from a few of these, which will help to convey some notion 

 of the condition of the house accommodation for labourers, 

 in Scotland and England. In Shetland — for I shall com- 

 mence with the extremest north — " the house accommo- 

 dation consists generally of a but aud a ben" (two rooms 

 en suite, the " but" answeiing to the kitchen, or living-room, 

 inthe cottages of England; the"ben"tothe best,orbedroom), 

 " vrith somatimes an attic, built of limestone; eaithen floors 



thatched roof, and fire in cent' e of kitchen or but end, but 

 chimney in better or ben end. Very little furniture, seldom 

 a table, in kitchen ; but uniformly a settle, or wooden sofa, 

 on which a man might stretch himself ; one or two wooden 

 arm-chairs and semi-stools ; a number of sea-chests, 

 arranged as a platform ; around the walls a pot or two, a 

 tea-kettle ; and the tea-pot almost uniformly and con- 

 stantly at the fire. Ben end, table, chaii's, ttc-, all wooden ; 

 beds with drawing lids, bound. Beds in Idtchen often one 

 above the other, like ships' berths. Bedclothes good. A 

 handsomely-wrought, heavy bed-cover, in fancy wools, is 

 the requisite providing of a female at marriage. In my 

 district, the United parish, the dwellings are improving 

 fast, and chimneys and fioored ben ends are put into most 

 of the newly-erected houses." The exterior of such 

 houses is, as I can state from my own experience, any- 

 thing but inviting. The walls are rough, the windows 

 small, the roof of thatch being held down (for winds 

 blow fiercely in that wild part of her Majesty's dominions), 

 by straw ropes, with dangling ends, weighted by heavy 

 stones. Interior cleanliness is not much thought of ap- • 

 parcntly ; for I have seen the hens perching on the edge 

 of the berth-beds, and the pig lying by the hearth ; indeed, 

 a general grimiuess pervades everything, from the want of 

 a chimney, the smoke rarely leaving the vent, or aperture, 

 in the roof, without curling in the interior of the house. 

 Upon the whole, however, the house accommodation of 

 the poor Shetlander compares pretty favourably with that 

 of some of our southern and more favoured districts. Of 

 the cottages in the remote districts of the Highlands, as in 

 the neighbourhood of Glencoe, a correspondent furnishes 

 the following description : " The humblest style of cot- 

 tages, or rather huts, are constructed of a rough frame- 

 work of timber, with heather or gorse interwoven, about 

 two or three feet in thickness. The walls, if they may be 

 so called, are not generally higher than about six feet ; 

 the roof thatched, with poles laid cross-wise, and bound, 

 to prevent its being torn up by the wind. In addition to 

 this, ropes constructed of twigs are suspended, and at- 

 tached to large stones, to give additional security ; but the 

 wind is so strong tlio,t, in exposed situations, such as the 

 moor at Corpach, my friend has seen the cottagers 

 holding on by the ropes themselves. I believe, for these 

 places, with a little croft attached, the rent is merely 

 nominal. These cottages are built of stone; in some 

 cases, of slate, as in the neighbourhood of Ballachulish. 

 These are laid sometimes in regular fashion. Others are 

 of rough stones of all shapes, something like a stone wall 

 laid without mortar, and aftenvards plastered in a rough 

 way ; others of river or rounded stones. The height of 

 wall is not more than six feet; thatched roof; chimney 

 constructed of a light fi-amework of sticks, with turf laid 

 against it. There are never more than two rooms, no 

 ceiling, very often no fire-grate ; but when there is, it is of 

 the rudest description. The floors are generally bare 

 earth, with perhaps a hearthstone or so. These have 

 generally a little croft, in which they grow potatoes, 

 oats, Sec For these they pay about £1 a year. 

 Some of these cottages are anything but water-tight: 

 I have seen some of tliejii, diu'iug heavy rain, almost 

 flooded, owng to the thatch having been neglected." 

 As regards house accommodation in Aberdeenshire, a 

 valued correspondent writes me : " House accommo« 

 dation, in this county, is both far too limited in quan- 

 tity and bad in quality It is the bcjunden duty of 



all proprietors to fm-nish a full equipment of substantial 



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