210 Some Account of the Parish of Monkton Farleigh. 



money a week), but besides this he had his fuel gratis, he had free 

 range for his pigs, his ducks, his geese, and his cow ; he was, per- 

 haps, even — a small return given in kind or in labor — practically a 

 freeholder ; and, if the statute of Elizabeth was ever in force, he 

 was a landowner of as much land as he could personally superin- 

 tend. 



I cannot say whether this description of the agricultural laborer 

 of the sixteenth century is applicable to our laborer at that time, 

 but certainly their position here about the middle of that century 

 (1635), and even at an earlier period (1294), was very favorable, 

 for when they had paid a quit rent, either in money or in manual 

 labor, to the value of 10*., or at the most £1 a year, they would 

 seem to have been practically independent. 



"'Twere hard to tell and sad to trace 

 Each step fi"om grandeur to disgace," 



but certainly the laborer of 1863 in our parish, as described by Mr. 

 Powell, must have been in a sorry plight, and " quantum mutatus 

 ab illo •'•' of the sixteenth century. The wages but 8*. to 10*. a 

 week ; the lodging indifferent and indecent ; the drainage bad ; the 

 will and the means for domestic comfort alike wanting ; and, I may 

 add, the privileges of land, pasture, fuel, and forage, entirely swept 

 away. 



Happily, in the short interval of some seventeen or eighteen years, 

 we have a different story to tell. Nearly one half of our hand- 

 labouring population consists of quarrymen. Their labor is for the 

 most part piece-work in the free-stone quarries, and their weekly 

 earnings are from 155. to 25*. and even 30*. The agricultural 

 laborer, if his earnings are not so high in cash, is yet comparatively 

 well off. His wages are from 12*. to 15*. a week; he has a cottage 

 rent-free ; at lambing or harvest time, or in hauling for other than 

 land work on the farm, he gets extra allowances; his potato-ground 

 is given to and ploughed for him. Thus, whilst his yearly income is 

 nearly equal to that of the ganger or head quarryman, his earnings 

 are more sure, and his work is neither so severe nor so dangerous 

 to life and limb, and is far more health-giving and maintaining. It 



