102 TE&lFQF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 



It would be taken I have no doubt at all 

 that the editor so received it as the letter of 

 a clear-headed, well-informed, middle-aged 

 Wiltshire farmer. He writes at full length, 

 covering two columns and a quarter of the 

 Times, in small print. The letter itself is so 

 curious, as giving an account of a condition of 

 things which has already greatly changed in 

 the sixteen years since it was written, that I 

 have placed it for preservation in an appendix 

 to this volume. The leader on the subject in 

 the Times of the same day thus sums up the 

 case: 



" When so much is done for labourers by 

 an improved class of landlords and tenants, 

 and when it is evident that they cannot but 

 share the general advance of wages, what is it 

 that remains to be done ? There can be no 

 doubt about it, and we commend it to the 

 attention of the talkative gentlemen who are 

 making fine speeches and backing up the 

 labourer to a stand-up fight with his em- 

 ployer. It is the labourer himself who 

 wants improvement. He will do every- 



