THE AFTERMATH OF THISTLES. 71 



the local authorities that they were properly employed 

 in labour and who held certificates intimating that they 

 had reached the Third Standard had only to put in 150 

 annual attendances from the age of ten to that of thirteen. 

 Reliable authorities have asserted that wherever these 

 by-laws were in force 99 per cent, of the boys could free 

 themselves from school attendance at the age of eleven. 1 



In Scotland it was otherwise. Evidence was forthcoming 

 even as far back as the Commission of 1870 that the boys 

 and girls of Scottish hinds were kept at school until they 

 were twelve or thirteen years of age. 



Labourers, no doubt, felt the lack of the earnings of their 

 children, and it is to their credit that they, much more 

 than their employers, were the educational enthusiasts. 

 It would be sentimental to say that the labourer loved educa- 

 tion for education's sake. Probably, the sentiment of the 

 ordinary parent was expressed by a woman to a Com- 

 missioner in 1867 when she said : " If I could only get 

 him to be a scholar he should never be a farm labourer." 



In Sussex in the early 'eighties shepherds, as a rule, could 

 neither read nor write, and yet they had their own way of 

 counting sheep. The strange formula ran thus : One-erum, 

 Two-erum, Cock-erum, Shoo-erum, Shitherum, Shatherum, 

 Wineberry, Wagtail, Tarrididdle, Ten. 



Much of the evidence given by Joseph Arch before the 

 Royal Commission in 1881 is interesting, not only from the 

 light it throws upon the labourer's position at that time, 

 but also on the character of Arch himself. He told the 

 Commission that wages in 1871 were almost at starvation 

 point. 



" What do you consider," asked the Duke of Richmond 

 and Gordon, the President, " to be what you call starvation 

 point ? I do not quite understand how you gauge that." 2 



" When a man's wages for the whole of the week do not 

 leave him more than a penny per meal per head, men, 

 women and children, I think that is next to starvation." 



When asked what he considered a labourer ought to be 



1 Annals of the British Peasantry, by Russell M. Gamier. 

 8 Royal Commission on Agriculture, 1880-82. 



