GLANCING BACK. 195 



attract attention, and it is the business of book writers 

 to give emphasis to these. 



Here, for instance, is a paragraph from the Poor 

 Law Commission report of 1843 that gives an excellent 

 summing-up of the general condition as to the dwellings 

 at that time of agricultural labourers. The Com- 

 missioner says : 



" The want of sufficient accommodation seems universal. 

 Cottages generally have only two bedrooms (with very rare 

 exceptions) ; a great many have only one. The conse- 

 quence is, that it is often extremely difficult, if not impos- 

 sible, to divide a family so that grown-up persons of different 

 sexes, brothers and sisters, fathers and daughters, do not sleep 

 in the same room. Three or four persons not unfrequently 

 sleep in the same bed. In a few instances I found that two 

 families, neighbours, arranged so that the females of both 

 families slept together in one cottage and the males in the 

 other : but such an arrangement is very rare, and in the gener- 

 ality of cottages I believe that the only attempt that is, or 

 that can be, made to separate beds, with occupants of different 

 sexes, and necessarily placed close together from the small- 

 ness of the rooms, is an old shawl or some article of dress 

 suspended as a curtain between them." 



To give an illustration of his statements, the Com- 

 missioner measured a cottage bedroom in a village called 

 Stourpain, near Blandford, in Dorsetshire. This cottage 

 possessed only two rooms, one above the other and it 

 must have presented a very tiny appearance. The 

 general " sitting room " was, naturally, the ground- 

 floor one and used for meals and every other domestic 

 purpose except sleeping. There were eleven persons 

 in the family occupying the cottage ; and it is significant 

 to note that the entire earnings of the eleven were 

 sixteen and sixpence per week ! The " privileges " 

 given, in addition to this princely income, consisted of 

 the allowance by the farmer per week of one bushel of 

 " grist " corn the inferior kind, sometimes called 

 " tailings." The family were allowed to have this at 

 one shilling below the current market rate. This 

 practically meant the addition of a shilling to the 



