THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



117 



all ploughmen will be comfortaWy lodged." Whei'e the 

 bothy is used in Invcrnessahirc, '■ it is a clean-floored and 

 neat room of considerable size, with the beds in the side, 

 or frequently in an adjoining room." But the testimony 

 given on the subject is not generally so favourable to the 

 bothy system ; indeed, the weight of evidence is altoge- 

 ther against it, as productive of an immense amount of 

 social evil. A correspondent in Caithness — a county in 

 Scotland, in which the bothy system can be examined 

 in all phases — sends me Jthe following, part of a report 

 which lie drew up on the subject : " A common arrange- 

 ment of some bothies is as follows : The male and the 

 female servants sit and eat and pass their evenings in 

 the place where the lads sleep, and the females' sleeping- 

 place is in some off-closet, entering from it or in a separate 

 but adjacent apartment. Sometimes the sexes have sepa- 

 rate apartments to dwell in, having difterent outer doors. 

 Tliese apartments may be placed on opposite sides of the 

 farm court-yard. Not always, liowever, is there such ac- 

 commodation. There are instances in whicli the males 

 and the females sit, eat, and sleep in the same miserable 

 place. Abundance of peats is allowed by the masters to 

 the bothies, but neither lamp nor candle. I speak of the 

 general practice ; but I never heard of an exception. 

 There is consequently no reading in our long winter even- 

 ings, and the darkness of the bothies encourages and 

 facilitates deeds of darkness. This is the description of a 

 bothy given by one of my reverend coi-respondents : ' A 

 lad and a big boy and a single woman live in one room, 

 which is badly furnished. There are two benches or forms, 

 which supply the place of stools or chairs, but there is no 

 table; the inmates make use of a chest lid as a substitute. 

 There are two beds of coarse unplained deals, and the in- 

 terior is altogether uncomfortable.' The preceding de- 

 scription is, I have reason to believe, applicable, as to the 

 fitting up, to numbers of oiu" bothies. "Wieir furnishing 

 is for the most part wretched. All the slieets and blankets 

 must be pi'ovided by the lads themselves, and all the 

 bowls, plates, and spoons — all the dishes indeed, except 

 the pot. Their food consists of milk, when it can be got, 

 and oatmeal. Beef, mutton, pork, or fish, or flesh of any 

 kind, they very rarely taste. The bothy may not be cleaned 

 out or whitewashed for years, and their bedding is washed 

 but seldom. In our bothies there is aU but a universal 

 sluttish and a slovenly disregard of cleanliness, order, and 

 neatnesss." Calmly weighing all the statements pro and 

 con., on the important subject of " bothies," I find that the 

 evidence against them is very strong, while very nearly all 

 that can be said in their favour is dictated, to a great ex- 

 tent, from notions of expediency. There can be no doubt, 

 I should think, in the minds of everyone calmly consi- 

 dering the subject, that any system of housing which does 

 away with the family influences cannot be a good one- 

 The beneficent God, " who maketh families like a flock," 

 has ordained the family institution as one which exerciscg 

 tlie strongest influence and the best in man ; and all 

 attempts to substitute a mode of linng opposed to this, 

 cannot, from the nature of things, be good. We may 

 modify the evils and get rid of some of the eftects ; but the 

 primary cause still existing, these effects will evei-y now 

 and then crop out. I see, then, no method more likely to 

 do away the evils of the system, than that the unmarried 

 labourers shall be lodged in the houses of the married 

 labourers, and that the number of married labourers should 

 be increased. The system of lodging is carried out in the 

 manufacturing districts, and I see no valid reason why it 



cannot be adopted in 'rural ones. Failing this (and it 

 must of necessity be a work of time to carry it out, involv- 

 ing as it does increased home accommodation), I see but 

 one way of meliorating the evils — in addition to making 

 the internal arrangements and construction in keeping 

 with sanitary requirements — namely, for the farmer to 

 exercise a steady and constant control and 9uper\T.sion 

 over the arrangements and ijoiiigs on in the bothy. By 

 this, much of the benefits of tlie family system may be 

 realized. There is more in the suggestion for increasing 

 the number of our married labourers than appears at first 

 siglit. It is a pretty general testimony that married men 

 make the best and the most trustworthy of servants. Nor 

 need this be wonderedat. Butaslightknowledgeof human 

 nature is required to explain it. JNIuch of the evils, I 

 think, in connection with the condition of our agricultural 

 labourers would be got rid of, if we could increase the 

 number of married labourers, and secure good house ac- 

 commodation for them. This latter is essential. I have 

 thus presented to you a series of pictures — so to speak — 

 illustrative of home accommodation in Scotland, and those 

 drawn by artists on the spot, deeming it better to give 

 these than sketches of my own. Time fails me to go over 

 the wide range of English distiicts in a similar manner, 

 I can but give a few sketches furnished me by esteemed 

 correspondents. In Dorsetshire, " as to house accommo- 

 dation," sa3's a correspondent, " I believe it is nowhere 

 worse than in this county. The cottages are the greater 

 part mud-buUt and very small, and contain but few conve- 

 niences ; and there are many instances where a whole 

 family, sometimes quite a large one, have to put up with 

 a solitary sleeping apartment — where the father and the 

 mother, the boys and the girls herd together, to the total 

 destruction of common decency, and consequently to the 

 detriment of moi-ality." A correspondent in South Lin- 

 colnshire says, " The poor are pretty weU provided as 

 regards home accommodation, though generally their 

 houses are two small ; and where a family is at all a large 

 one, that leads to a sad state of immorality, from boys and 

 girls, young and old, all being ci'owded together, and yet 

 any increase of rent at once stops tlie labourers from at- 

 tempting to lessen that seriously improper state of things." 

 In Essex, says a correspondent, " cottage accommodation 

 has been sadly neglected, but farmers are beginning to 

 see that it is as necessary to have their labourers close at 

 hand as it is to have their horses on the farm. The union 

 of parishes has done away with the practice of pulling down 

 cottages, or not erecting new ones, for fear the aged, sick, 

 or infirm labourers should in their distress become 

 chargeable to the parish which has had the benefit of 

 their labours when capable of exertion. Landlords and 

 tenants are too apt, even now, to look for profit from 

 the housing of the labourer. This is a great mistake ; 

 for by huddling together the males and females in inde 

 cent propinquity, their health and morals become tainted, 

 and re-act fearfully in various ways on the interest of 

 both landlord and tenant. A suitable porportion of cot- 

 tage accommodation should be attached to every farm, and 

 at least one-eighth of an acre of garden ground will tend 

 much to the comfort and morality of the labourer and his 

 family." " One of tlie great existing evils," says a corres- 

 pondent, referring to the state of matters in West Suffolk, 

 " with the poor man, is a want of proper cottage accom- 

 modation ; the miserable home, with but one bed-room 

 and the sitting-room, is most prevalent; and you may tra- 

 vel through parish after parish, and scarcely find a cottage 



