68 A FARMER'S YEAR 



or is disabled by accident. It is during these first seventeen or 

 eighteen years of his married life that the burden of existence falls 

 most heavily upon him, since there are many mouths to feed and 

 only one pair of hands to provide the food. Still, in the vast 

 majority of instances, it is provided, and, what is more, if his wife 

 be a managing woman blessed with fair health, the children are 

 sufficiently, and in many instances neatly, clothed. Often, when 

 passing the school of this parish as the scholars are coming out 

 of it, I have noticed and wondered at their general tidiness and 

 good appearance. Not one of them looks starved, not one of 

 them seems to be suffering from cold ; indeed, any delicate 

 youngster is provided with a proper coat or comforter. 



Afterwards, when his family is growing up, our labourer's long 

 struggle against want becomes less severe, for the boys begin to 

 earn a little, some of which finds its way to the general fund, and 

 the girls go out as servants, kitchen-maids, or ' generals,' in situa- 

 tions where they are well fed and paid enough to dress themselves, 

 leaving a pound or two in their pockets at the end of the year. So 

 matters go on until our friend becomes old, which common mis- 

 fortune overtakes him about the age of seventy. Then it is that 

 too frequently the real tragedy of life strikes him. He is no 

 longer able to do a full day's work, and in these times, when the 

 best of farmers can scarcely make both ends meet and earn a 

 living, it is not to be expected, indeed it is not possible, that they 

 should continue to pay him for what he cannot perform. There- 

 fore, if help is not forthcoming from his children or other sources, 

 he must sink to the workhouse, or at least upon the rates. 



Such but too often, though by no means universally, is the 

 bitter end of his long life of useful and strenuous labour. Is it a 

 necessary end? I think not. I know all the pitfalls and diffi- 

 culties that surround the question of Old-Age Pensions. This is 

 not the place to discuss them fully, but for my part I believe that 

 the case of a deserving labouring man ought not to be beyond the 

 reach of some system of insurance, though whether it should be 

 national insurance that is to say, inaugurated, managed, and 



