90 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER. 



of large and wealthy owners. The worst cottage owners, 

 then as now, were often those who kept the village shop or 

 the public house and lived much before the world in church 

 or chapel " They walked with a stick," as they said in Arcady. 



In Warwickshire the returns of the Medical Officer of 

 Health published at this period showed that 20 per cent, 

 of all the cottages in the county possessed only one bedroom 

 each ; whilst 50 per cent, had only two bedrooms each 

 Farther north, in Yorkshire and the more northern counties, 

 many cottages consisted of only two rooms, and it would 

 have been difficult for the visitor to discriminate between 

 the kitchen and the sitting-room. Both were fitted with a 

 couple of wooden box beds, which took up nearly half the 

 available space. The mattress was stuffed with chaff from 

 the barn. If the family was a large one, two or three, 

 sometimes of different sexes, would be obliged to sleep in 

 the same bed. Under these beds would be stored the 

 year's potatoes, while in two chests would be kept 

 the flour and oatmeal. Below the table might be a pig 

 in pickle. The one jealously guarded box, when the young 

 men and young women began to court, would be that 

 which contained their Sunday clothes ! 



The bothy system was much in vogue in the north and 

 of this a pleasing description is given by Mr. Anderson 

 Graham, though one may doubt whether it was typical. 

 It is certainly picturesque, and I should like to quote it in 

 full: 



" A description of one will give those who do not know it some 

 idea of a plan carried out here and there chiefly on very large 

 farms. It had five inmates, all young, unmarried men ranging 

 in age, to judge by appearance, from eighteen to five or six-and- 

 twenty. The building was old and looked like a disused saddle 

 room with a loft to it. When I went the family were just about 

 to have tea. No cloth was on the table, but it and the floor were 

 scrubbed as clean as a ship's deck. They told me that the house- 

 work was taken in rotation for a week at a time, he on whom it 

 devolved being for that period the ' Bessie ' of the household. 

 He had made the tea, cut and buttered the bread, and was 

 boiling the eggs as I entered. The most diligent housewife 

 might have envied the tidy hearth, the shining fender and 

 fire-irons, the well-brushed pot and kettle. Nor did the sturdy 



