572 Rl ADINGS IN RURAL ECONOMICS 



brought whole families to wreck. But want, actual want of food 

 for the stomach, of clothing for the back, and of shelter for t be- 

 head, such as stalks abroad through the poorer parts of great 

 cities, is rare today in rural England. There are those who for 

 this cause or for that fall into its clutches but who can generally 

 find a friend to help them, in nine cases out of ten the despised 

 parson or the much-abused squire. 



I know no better test of well-being than the appearance of the 

 children of a locality. Now I venture to assert that any observer 

 who stood at the gates of Ditchingham School, or of those of 

 some neighbouring parish, and watched the pupils coming out to 

 play, would find them as well and sufficiently clothed, as well 

 fed, and in general of as happy and healthy an appearance, as 

 it is possible for children of their class to be. If, however, he 

 took the train to some great city and repeated his observations 

 at the door of a large board school, would he be able to say as 

 much ? In short, even for the very poorest, life in the country 

 has not those horrors that in towns must be its constant com- 

 panion. We complain, and rightly, of the state of our cottages ; 

 but after all, how many cases of consumption are there in them, 

 and how, for -young or old, do the rural tables of mortality com- 

 pare with those of towns ? Is it possible in a village for such a 

 thing as this to happen ? A lady known to the writer was dis- 

 trict-visiting, I think in London, and in a tenement of one room 

 found a woman nursing some children sick with I forget what com- 

 plaint. Presently this poor creature opened the door of a cupboard 

 and showed her the bodies of two more of her offspring which she 

 had thrust away thus because there was nowhere else to put them. 



Still for such homes as these, and perhaps to fates as dreadful, 

 people flock from their wholesome, happy villages, where their 

 labour at least brings health and in most cases sufficiency, to the 

 towns where they believe that they are certain of higher wages 

 and more amusement. A while ago I met a man, evidently an 

 agricultural labourer, walking down the Strand and literally weep- 

 ing. It appeared on investigation that he had come up with his 

 family from some rural district in the hope of "bettering" him- 

 self. The result was that at the time of our meeting he and 



