Human Physiology. 33 



The common decencies of life are unknown to them. They 

 have no modesty, no shame ; need we ask if they have any 

 virtue? 



A few years ago, Mr. Tucker, a Berkshire magistrate, 

 employed two persons to obtain correct information respecting. 

 the condition of the rural cottages, and he laid the result 

 before a meeting of the Farringdon Agricultural Library. In 

 doing this he expressed his belief that the condition of Far- 

 ringdon Union is only a sample of the agricultural population 

 of England. 



Here are a few items from the report : 



"FERNHAM. Eleven persons sleeping in two bedrooms, both on the 

 ground floor ; seven persons do. ; ten persons do. ; son and daughter, over 

 sixteen years of age, with two other persons, sleeping in one room ; three 

 sons and a daughter and two younger children, with father and mother, 

 sleeping in a room eight by twelve feet ; two single men lodging with a 

 man and wife, with four children, making eight persons sleeping in one 

 room; two brothers and two sisters, above sixteen years of age, with 

 father, mother, and four children, making ten persons sleeping in one room. 



"LECHLADE. A man and wife, with a female lodger and five children,, 

 sleeping 'pell mell' together. 



"BUCKLAND. A man and wife, with two grown-up girls and two other 

 children, all sleeping in one room; a man and wife, with four children, 

 including a grown-up girl, all sleep in one room ; a widow, with grown-up 

 son and daughter, and a lodger, all sleep in one room ; a woman slept for 

 a long time with a son aged twenty-four. 



"KINGSTON LISLE. Most of the cottages have only one small bed- 

 room, yet the families are large, and the majority take lodgers. Example 

 Man and wife, with five children and two men and three women lodgers, 

 making twelve persons sleeping in one room. 



" BALKING. Man and wife, with grown-up daughter and son, and four 

 illegitimate children of daughter, all sleep in one small room. " 



A writer in Macmillaris Magazine asserts that the condition 

 of the British agricultural labourer is now far inferior to what 

 it was in the T4th century. The Pall Mall Gazette says, 

 " The misery of the agricultural poor is the great blot in OUT 

 whole system of government." 



