JUNE 251 



expected to undertake this heavy labour, for which they are un- 

 suited by nature. It may be answered that women work in the 

 fields in other parts of the world ; among the African tribes, for 

 instance, or, to com.e nearer home, in Normandy and Brittan3\ I 

 have often seen the Zulu and Basuto women at their toil, which 

 chiefly consists of hoeing, but I cannot say that it ever impressed 

 me as being of a character Ukely to do them harm. Natives are 

 very kind to their female folk and children, smd for the most part 

 would not overwork them. The horrors that we read of in the 

 pohce-court reports, or, let us say, in the monthly journal of the 

 Society for the Prevention of Cri:elly to Children, are imknown, 

 and would, indeed, be impossil _ ihose sections of the Bantu 



people with whom I have mixcu. Ii is in Christian monogamous 

 Britain that the enhghtened and educated citizen beats the last 

 breath out of his wife \A\h a poker, or demises fiendish tortures 

 for the bodies of his little children ; the poor misguided black 

 man shrinks from such things. 



Perhaps the native women know that at the worst they have 

 nothing more than a scolding to expect, or perhaps the pressure of 

 competition has not yet overtaken them ; at zny rate, they always 

 seemed to me to Ughten their work with the pleasures of gossip, 

 and, should any excuse arise, to be quite ready to postpone it for a 

 whUe. How difierent it is in France, where one may see women, 

 prematurely old and haggard, struggUng up some lull bearing 

 on their backs a great basket filled with filthy manure, or even 

 pla)ang the parts of animals to drag an implement through the 

 soil. Let us be thankful that the day of such things has gone by 

 in England. 



I do not mean to imply, however, that even singling beet is 

 child's play, for, until one gets used to it, I cannot imagine any 

 more back-breaking task, especially in a hot sun. Still, it is a 

 means of earning a few shillings, of which some of the older school 

 of labourers" wives, whose children are ofi" their hands — for the 

 young women will do nothing — are glad to a\-ail themselves; 

 moreover, it is healthful, and does them no physical harm. 



