THE SOCIAL REVOLUTION 127 



any might climb ; for the intermediate rungs between 

 labourer and farmer were broken. ) 



In the latter part of the XVIIIth and first part of 

 the XlXth century the villages contained, therefore, a 

 mass of poverty-stricken labourers, who had 

 been depressed, in part through the dying 

 out of village industries, but in the main by 

 the loss of their land or common rights. The life of 

 this class had, even before that time, lost the character- 

 istics that had given interest to the days of their 

 ancestors. There was little of the merrymaking that 

 had belonged to the earlier periods. Sundays were no 

 longer cheerful holidays, and saints' days were not 

 observed. In many districts the labourer had no holidays 

 save Christmas Day, fair day and 'club day,' when 

 the village sick and benefit club, a widespread institu- 

 tion, a relic of the great co-operative life, met, feasted, 

 and spent at the village inn a considerable share of 

 its corporate savings. There was, moreover, none of 

 the democratic local government to occupy the energies 

 of the people ; whilst the Church was no longer the 

 leader of their life, for it had attached itself, as a rule, to 

 the squirearchy. On the other hand, the Nonconformist 

 bodies grew in strength and numbers, and drew into 

 their organization many of the more independent 

 thinkers amongst both men and women. But, on the 

 whole the Nonconformists followed the Puritan tradi- 

 tion, and whilst they did much for religious life they 

 did little for social. 



The labourers were poor, many miserably so, and a 

 large section were constantly sinking into the position 

 of paupers. For these poor people the parish of their 

 birth or of their ' settlement ' continued to be respon- 



