BRITISH RURAL LIFE 

 AND LABOUR. 



BRITISH PEASANTS OF TO-DAY. 

 ENGLAND. 



CHAPTER I. 

 CLASSIFICATION OF LABOUR. 



THE word " peasant " is a generic expression intended 

 to include all those who are engaged professionally, so 

 to speak, in the cultivation of the soil all those, that 

 is to say, who engage in farming as a business, but who 

 work for an employer, a master man the farmer, in 

 short. The word farmer itself is a very broad expres- 

 sion, including under it two classes, the small farmer 

 and the large farmer. Both of these classes are again 

 generally divisible into two classes : those who farm 

 their own freeholds, and those who rent their farms 

 from a landed proprietor. Then there is the ordinary, 

 or working, farmer, who takes part in the labour of 

 the farm, and the " gentleman farmer," who merely 

 superintends the operations of his staff. 



" Peasant proprietor " means a small holder of land 



