THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 149 



steps to keep possible paupers outside the parish 

 boundaries. However, by legislation x and government 

 regulations the evils arising from the law of settlement 

 were ultimately brought to an end, and from 1865 the 

 Union, as a whole, and not the parish has been respon- 

 sible for the poor, whilst a year's residence has been 

 substituted for all other methods of obtaining a 

 settlement. 



The abolition in 1834 of the old system of allowances 



on which the labourer had learnt to depend, whilst it was 



intended to give him a new independence, 



at first depressed him into greater poverty, 



labourers. . /J 



since his wages rarely rose in proportion 



to his losses. The labourer's remedy was to increase 

 his income by keeping his wife and children at work 

 in the fields. Women were generally employed in the 

 dairy and in such work as weeding and hoeing ; in some 

 places they acted as carters, in others they even pre- 

 pared and loaded manure. The use of women's labour 

 became almost universal. Many of the women, includ- 

 ing quite young girls, also worked in the large mixed 

 gangs which were common at this period ; the evils 

 connected with these gangs were so great that they 

 were regulated by legislation, 2 and ultimately were given 

 up in most parts of England. 



As the decades passed there was a slight increase 

 in labourers' wages, but it was not sufficient to tempt 

 men of enterprise to stay in the villages. As a result, 

 during all this period of forty years a great migration 

 from the country went on, and men of energy and 

 ability, instead of staying in rural England to struggle 

 against overwhelming difficulties, drifted away to the 

 1 See Appendix, p. 171. 2 Ibid. p. 168. 



