52 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER. 



labourers at Exning living in cottages many of which had 

 only one bedroom, and a sitting-room 9 feet square, with 

 a ceiling so low that an average sized man could not stand 

 upright. The bedroom had a shelving roof and was dimly 

 lighted by a small window, and in this one room, or rather 

 loft, father and mother and children slept together. The 

 boards of one cottage were so rotten that they swarmed 

 with vermin " enough to run away with the children," 

 the mother said. 1 



The cottages were destitute of allotments and there 

 was no opportunity to keep pigs. Furthermore there was 

 no school. These wretched men were asking for 145. a 

 week and the prosperous farmers became alarmed. 



There was a striking contrast in these days between the 

 cottages on the Crown lands, which were quite good, and 

 the privately owned cottages. 



" Many cottages have but one bedroom," said The Times 

 correspondent. -' I visited one such cottage in which father, 

 mother, and six children were compelled to herd together one 

 a grown-up daughter. To be sure, the loft which formed the 

 one bedroom was twice as long as the usual run of such places. 

 The man said he had asked his landlord to put up a partition 

 and make another window, but in vain. In another cottage, the 

 woman said they had put the children upstairs, and she and her 

 husband had slept in a bed on the brick floor until the bottom 

 board of the bed had fallen to pieces from damp, and then they 

 had to go among the children again." 



Six weeks later a notice was issued to the Essex farmers. 

 It ran thus : 



" November 6, 1872. 



" DEAR SIR, 



" The agricultural labourers of this branch of the National 

 Agricultural Union in your employ beg respectfully to inform 

 you that on and after Friday they will require a rise in their 

 wages from 2od. to 26d. per day, and a general conformity to 

 their rules, a copy of which we enclose. 



" Being desirous of retaining good relations between employer 

 and employed, and to assure you that no unbecoming feelings 

 prompt us to such a course, we invite you (if our terms are not 

 in accordance with your views) to appoint an early time to meet 



1 The Agricultural Lock-out, 1874, by Frederick Clifford. 



