io6 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER. 



" who have not more than los. a week in money and per- 

 quisites that certainly do not come to 2s. more, wherewith 

 themselves and a young family have to be fed and dressed and 

 lodged. How they manage to thrive in health as they do, is a 

 mystery." 



" Again," he adds, " in the neighbouring county of Wilts 

 there is equal hardship. There are many neatly-thatched 

 picturesque dwellings cosily hidden in nooks of the Downs, in 

 dales through which the running water has fretted a channel, 

 where the income is not so large. On the east coast there are 

 even worse cases. Norfolk and Suffolk give me the impression 

 of being at the present moment the most wretched of agricultural 

 counties, so far as the labourers are concerned. It was only in 

 East Anglia that I found actual cases of able-bodied men keeping 

 their families on a wage of eighteen-pence a day, Sundays not 

 included. Game preservers complain of the amount of poaching 

 that goes on, but one can hardly wonder at it. A man who has 

 not meat to his dinner more than once out of seven times, is 

 under strong temptation to fill his pot with the first wild thing 

 he can lay hands on. Yet I could give the addresses of agricul- 

 tural labourers in Essex, Hertfordshire, and even Berkshire, 

 where the family income is not much in excess of what I have 

 mentioned. The extraordinary contrasts presented by the 

 various shires tend to produce a feeling of scepticism in regard 

 to averages. Sufficient statistics to make them trustworthy have 

 not yet been collected, and it would be a difficult task to do so." l 



The aristocrat amongst farm workers south of the Trent, 

 was the man who had charge of horses, sheep, or cattle 

 all the year round without incurring any loss for wet days 

 and enjoying harvest money and cottage accommodation. 

 Such, for instance, was the ploughman in Essex as described 

 by Mr. James Macdonald, whose revised edition of The 

 Book of the Farm appeared in 1891. 



s. d. 



Fifty-two weeks at 145. per week . 36 8 o 



Extra for haymaking 



Do. in harvesting 

 Cottage .... 

 Firewood, beer money, etc., say 



i 10 o 



3 10 o 

 500 



120 



Total . . 47 10 o 



" This is the rate for the best men," says Mr. Macdonald. 

 " Ordinary men get about is. a week less." If, however, 



1 The Rural Exodus, by P. Anderson Graham. 



