378 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 



neighbourhood of large manufacturing towns Is. 6d. a 

 week is sometimes paid ; but then these cottages 

 would in such positions readily let to mechanics for 

 3s., 4s., and even 5s. per week. There was a great 

 outcry when the Duke of Marlborough issued an order 

 that the cottages on his estate should in future only be 

 let to such men as worked upon the farms where those 

 cottages are situated. In reality this was the very 

 greatest blessing the Duke could have conferred upon 

 the agricultural labourer ; for it insured him a good 

 cottage at a nearly nominal rent and close to his work; 

 whereas in many instances previously the cottages on 

 the farms had been let at a high rate to the mechanics, 

 and the labourer had to walk miles before he got to 

 his labour. Cottages are not erected by landowners or 

 by farmers as paying speculations. It is well known 

 that the condition of things prevents the agricultural 

 labourer from being able to pay a sufficient rent to be 

 a fair percentage upon the sum expended. In one in- 

 stance a landlord has built some cottages for his 

 tenant, the tenant paying a certain amount of interest 

 on the sum invested by the landlord. Now, although 

 this is a matter of arrangement, and not of speculation 

 that is, although the interest paid by the tenant is a 

 low percentage upon the money laid out, yet the rent 

 paid by the labourers inhabiting these cottages to the 

 tenant does not reimburse him what he pays his land- 

 lord as interest not by a considerable margin. But 

 then he has the advantage of his labourers close to his 

 work, always ready at hand. 



Over and above the actual cash wages of the 

 labourer, which are now very good, must be reckoned 

 his cottage and garden, and often a small orchard, at a 



