TERMS OF EMPLOYMENT. 13 



custom, except in the northern counties ; but to this 

 rule there are some exceptions. A fortnight is occa- 

 sionally the term of notice ; a week sometimes. Now 

 and then a general engagement for a year is under- 

 stood, terminable by a week's or a month's notice. It 

 is rather curious, however, that the northern long-term 

 men change their situations more frequently than 

 those in the south ; and it is certainly the fact 

 that many southern labourers, although subject to a 

 week's notice, remain on in the service of the same 

 farmer for the best part and sometimes for the whole 

 of their lives. In the majority of instances in Beds, 

 Bucks, South Cambridgeshire, Essex, Herts, Hunts, 

 Middlesex, Norfolk, Northampton, Somerset, Suffolk, 

 Surrey, and Sussex, weekly engagements are the pre- 

 vailing custom. But the systems vary in Berks, Hants, 

 Kent, Gloucester, Oxfordshire, Warwick, Wilts, and 

 Worcestershire, where, sometimes, ordinary men are 

 engaged by the year, and sometimes for various periods 

 extending from one week to twelve months. In Dorset- 

 shire, there are some annual hirings for all classes of 

 labourers ; and then these hirings also are terminable 

 by a month's or even a fortnight's notice. Most of the 

 weekly engagements are made in West and North 

 Dorset ; but in some of the counties just named, short 

 notices by arrangement between employer and employed 

 can be given on either side, at will. 



The lodging and boarding of labourers in farmhouses, 

 though still the practice on many farms, such as those 

 in Cheshire, Cornwall, Derbyshire, Devonshire, Here- 

 ford (West), Monmouth, Salop, and Stafford, seems to be 

 declining. When so lodged and boarded, the arrange- 

 ments are generally by the half-year or the year. Obvi- 

 ously, in such cases, short notices for termination are 

 necessary, because the character of a " lodger " of this 

 kind must be a matter of importance to a farmer and 

 his family. So the terminable periods are weekly, 



