8 AWAKENING OF ENGLAND. 



village, you come to a row of four cottages 

 under one roof. Only one of these is occupied ; 

 the other three, with their doors and windows 

 battered in, have been left for rats to play 

 havoc in and the wind to whistle through. 

 From the occupied cottage issues a slatternly 

 young wife with a sporting dog at her heels. 

 It is probably the gamekeeper's. 



They tell me here that when a cottage 

 becomes unoccupied in the event of the death 

 of the breadwinner, or when a family leaves 

 to seek the higher wages and the larger 

 freedom of the towns, that no attempt is ever 

 made by the owner to keep the cottage in 

 repair. Where pheasants are wanted, the 

 peasant is not. 



The more enlightened of the village school- 

 masters rarely encourage any of the smarter 

 boys to remain on the land ; and who can 

 blame them ? AVages in this part of Hamp- 

 shire and of Wiltshire adjoining are only 12s. 

 a week for labourers, and 14s. for shepherds 

 and stockmen. No promise of higher wages 

 is made by the large farmers to induce the 

 more efficient of the boys to remain at work 

 on the farms. Cottage parents are often 

 persuaded by the farmers to take away their 



