

GLANCING BACK. 209 



week a big deduction from, for example, wages of even fourteen 

 shillings a week. Pauperism in this county was 6-5 per cent, 

 of the population. 



CAMBRIDGESHIRE. 



There was rather an extreme range in the county of Cambridge, 

 from the lowest to the highest wages. The former was ten 

 shillings, the latter thirteen ; and although carters were not 

 alluded to they no doubt got more, as elsewhere, for their work. 

 Pauperism was considered to be 6-9 per cent, of the population. 



CHESTER. 



In the Nantwich Union in Cheshire wages ranged from eleven 

 to twelve shillings a week, and piecework was rather seldom 

 performed. In the case, sometimes, of married men whose 

 cottages were situated at some distance from their work, they 

 were boarded at the farmhouses, and obtained payment in 

 addition to their board of five or six shillings a week. Cottage 

 rents were generally about eighteenpence a week. In two other 

 Unions wages were better : in the Runcorn Union, fifteen 

 shillings and beer ; in the Hawarden Union, fifteen shillings with- 

 out beer. Pauperism was 3*2 per cent. 



CORNWALL. 



It was rather a curious circumstance that in the parts of 

 Cornwall bordering upon Devon a lower rate of wages prevailed 

 than in the more remote parts of the first-named county. Near 

 Devon the rates in which naturally perhaps influenced the 

 contiguous parts of the adjoining county wages were from nine 

 to ten shillings a week : but on the " off " side, so to speak, of 

 Cornwall they were twelve shillings a week, with the addition of 

 a " privilege " in the shape of grist corn allowance and cider. It 

 was, however, only the best of the peasantry in Cornwall who 

 were, by the farmer's selection, employed on piecework. Poor 

 Law returns, as distinct from the findings of the Agricultural 

 Commissioners, put the average wages at this period in the 

 Camelford Union at eleven shillings a week ; and the same 

 returns gave pauperism the percentage of 4-9 per cent. It must 

 be noted, however, and it will be shown in instances later on, 

 that wherever mining industries, as in Cornwall, or manufac- 

 turing industries existed, the competition, for labour generally, 

 always tended to raise the rates of the lowest kinds of labour. 

 It is this circumstance, no doubt, that caused the marked and 

 very appreciable difference in wages between Cornwall and 

 Devon, and also influenced the pauperism of the two districts ; for 

 pauperism in Cornwall was only 4-9 per cent, of the population. 



CUMBERLAND. 



Here again the marked effect of a mining district is shown on 

 rates of wages, for they were as high in Cumberland as from 

 fifteen to eighteen shillings per week ; and in addition to these 



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