16 BRITISH RURAL LIFE AND LABOUR. 



is, the hiring of whole families, or, of course, of such 

 members as are available for work. These are some- 

 times lodged rent-free in cottages on the farm. Engage- 

 ments are generally for a year, though the wages, at 

 weekly rates, are paid fortnightly or monthly. Should 

 a man have available daughters, he can command, too, 

 better wages than those who have none. Women are 

 engaged, too, like the men for a year, and are expected, 

 if they are required, to work all the year, except in 

 very bad weather. The farmer, however, does not 

 undertake to pay them for every day as in the case of 

 the men, but may engage them as he wants them. 

 Unless, however, he does so pretty regularly, they will 

 not continue with him the next year. As the supply 

 of women is short, it is usually found that they are 

 kept pretty regularly employed. Sometimes a woman, 

 usually a widow, is specially employed by a farmer, 

 lodging in a cottage on the farm. She is then called 

 a " cottar." A curious system, which has now died 

 out, was that of the " bondager." A labourer, who 

 had no women of his own, hired some, and lodged 

 them in his cottage, boarding them and paying them 

 something in addition ; and he then " sublet " them, 

 so to speak, to the farmer. But as the money payment 

 by the farmer for the women's service was little more 

 than the man paid them, it was found, after adding 

 the cost of their " keep," that the " bondager " lost by 

 the transaction. His inducement to carry it on, how- 

 ever, was its being a condition of his getting employ- 

 ment. Still it is easy, for this reason, to see how it 

 was that the system was abandoned. In the two 

 counties last mentioned, there is a pretty good division 

 of labour. The land being largely arable, the majority 

 of labourers are ploughmen ("hinds"), each having 

 the entire care, both in ploughing and in the stable, of a 

 pair of horses. " Spade hands," as they are called, belong 

 to another set, and they have to be employed in anything 



