WALK IN RURAL ENGLAND. 11 



to 6s. a week. Here he saw some reapers in 

 a field that were "very pretty girls, though as 

 ragged as colts and as pale as ashes." As pale 

 as ashes ! No wonder ; with bread at Is. the 

 gallon loaf and wages at 6s. ! 



Starvation may not be as apparent as of 

 yore, it is true, but let us not plume ourselves 

 with the white feather of Free Trade. Starva- 

 tion has merely shifted its quarters. The 

 countryside has been left empty of people, and 

 starvation, attaching itself as a camp-follower 

 to the rural exodus, has found its lair in the 

 foul dens of the cities. An extra 4s. a week, 

 with higher rents to absorb it, is nothing 

 much to boast of, surely, after eighty years. 

 Labourers with an increased standard of 

 comfort, due largely to elementary education, 

 are no more willing to bring up their families 

 on 12s. a week than they were on 8s. The 

 subjective poverty of the poor, it must be 

 remembered, is more intense now than it was 

 in Cobbett's time. 



Yet the patience and endurance of the 

 toil -smitten, underpaid English peasant is 

 extraordinary. I stayed near Coombe with 

 an elderly man who kept a small inn. He 

 had been one of nine in a family supported by 



