SEED-TIME FOR REVOLT. 19 



support life, and the granting of allotments was not an act 

 of grace on any one's part. It had to be paid for, often at 

 the rent of 4 an acre in the county from which six men 

 were transported for joining a union in 1834. The con- 

 ditions of Devonshire I describe farther on, but I may 

 say here that the Assistant Commissioner, Mr. Portman, 

 found Canon Girdlestone's account substantially correct. 



The men of Hampshire enjoyed a wage of los. or us. 

 and the women 8d. a day. In this county, as in Dorset, 

 women were employed weeding in the cornfields, spreading 

 manure or picking stones. 



In Kent women and children were extensively employed, 

 especially at the hop-picking season, when every child that 

 could walk was wanted, and it was estimated that every 

 one over twelve years of age could earn on the average from 

 is. 6d. to 2s. 6d. a week for a period of three weeks. 

 Cockneys made their yearly economic pilgrimage into the 

 country for the hop-harvest. Otherwise the conditions in 

 Kent were similar to those of Essex and Sussex, except that 

 Sussex seems to have been free from the gang system which 

 still operated in the counties of Essex, Norfolk, Suffolk, 

 Lincolnshire and Cambridgeshire. In most of these coun- 

 ties children from seven to ten years of age were seen work- 

 ing in the fields. In south Cambridgeshire labourers re- 

 ceived los. to us., and in the northern parts 125. to 135., 

 whilst the women's wage was only lod. and a child's from 

 4d. to 6d. a day. The evils of the gang system, both pri- 

 vate and public, were very much in evidence in this county, 

 where children of even six years of age were employed. 

 In too many cases the Commissioner who made the Report 

 said there was a silent understanding between farmer and 

 labourer by which the latter was employed all the year 

 round, and in return the labour of the wife and children was 

 put at the employer's disposal. It is difficult to make any 

 kind of marked distinction between this kind of " free 

 labour " and serfdom. 



In Buckinghamshire and Bedfordshire conditions seem 

 to have been slightly better, especially in regard to the em- 

 ployment of children of -tender years, the average earnings of 



