144 ENGLISH RURAL LIFE 



labourers, to quote The Times, "exasperated into 

 madness by insufficient food and clothing, by utter 

 want of necessaries for themselves and their un- 

 fortunate families," were in open revolt. This revolt, 

 which took the form of the gathering of the people into 

 mobs, varying from a few hundred to a thousand or 

 more, commenced towards the end of August of 

 that year at Hardres in Kent, where some four 

 hundred labourers collected together and destroyed 

 some threshing-machines. The spread of threshing- 

 machines had been a severe blow to the men. Winter 

 threshing in the barns was comparatively well-paid 

 work, and kept men occupied from late autumn to 

 early spring ; the introduction of machines made it 

 possible for the farmers to dispense with this work 

 and to dismiss their labourers after harvest, leaving 

 them, perhaps, penniless to face the winter. The 

 labourers' action had, it will be seen, some reason 

 behind it. During the autumn the movement spread 

 from east to west, and there were widespread disorders 

 in Kent, Sussex, Surrey, Berkshire, Hampshire, Wilt- 

 shire and Gloucestershire, and to a less extent in 

 almost all the other counties of England. The mobs 

 demanded as a rule 2s. 6d. a day and regular em- 

 ployment. They destroyed many threshing-machines, 

 and there was much rick-burning. Attacks were 

 constantly made on overseers who had made them- 

 selves unpopular by their manner of administering the 

 poor law, and in a few cases on other individuals, but 

 as a rule the methods employed were orderly. The 

 Times special correspondent says the " conduct of the 

 peasantry has been admirable " : he describes how, 

 when " a parish has risen," the men gave notice to 

 the farmers, and appointed representatives, "some- 



