no ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER. 



the tramp, tramp, tramp of the young labourer was noted 

 with alarm. Yet even in Stisted men were only getting 

 us. in summer and los. in winter ! 



Apart from low wages and the absence of any pros- 

 pects in life, the school, the penny newspaper, the postage 

 stamp, and the bicycle were active agents in luring the 

 young from the villages. 



In Suffolk Mr. Millin found that, in the village of Barnham, 

 wages were slightly better than in any other neighbourhood 

 he visited. Labourers were " getting 125. a week a frac- 

 tion over 2jd. an hour it comes to and 7 los. for the har- 

 vest.' ' As he says, " one cannot but suspect in moving about 

 these rural districts that the wages received by the people 

 really have little or no relation either to what they earn 

 or to what the master can afford to pay." 



The Duke of Grafton was the owner of Barnham. He paid 

 his labourers better than most of the landowners in the 

 neighbourhood and his cottages were good and cheap. 

 The fly in his ointment was a little Primitive Methodist 

 Chapel, which being forbidden a footing, was eventually 

 erected on wheels by a sturdy peasant who paid the penalty 

 for his daring by lack of employment and an exile from his 

 village lasting some years ! 



In another village governed by a benevolent despot 

 this time the vicar's wife every cottage woman had 

 a blanket loaned to her for the winter, which was taken 

 out of a calico bag sewn up with string and sealed with 

 black wax. In March every blanket was put back into 

 its calico bag for the summer. The owner of this pro- 

 perty was Lord de Saumarez. In this district los. a week 

 was the reigning rate of pay, and one young man of 

 twenty was receiving only 8s. 



On the Duke of Marlborough's estate at Woodstock 

 the rate of pay for summer was I2S. a week, and in 

 the same county of Oxfordshire los. was being paid as the 

 normal summer rate, which sank in winter to 95. It should 

 be remembered that this winter pay was subject to deduc- 

 tions upon wet days by certain farmers in some districts. 

 Nowhere did he find any survival of the old-fashioned 



