CHAPTER XXXIV. 

 PEASANT WOMEN AND CHILDREN. 



SOME reference, in the preceding chapter, has already 

 been made to the employment of women and children 

 in agriculture. It is probably the stringent regulations 

 of the Education Acts now in force that have largely 

 brought about the discontinuance of child labour ; 

 and women are very much less employed than they 

 used to be in farming occupations. But, at the time 

 under review, it was quite a frequent occurrence to see 

 women in the fields. The system, however, was fraught 

 with serious evils the worst of which was practically 

 the entire neglect of her family during the whole of 

 the daytime. Now and then it might happen that 

 a grandparent or aunt or other relative was available 

 to look after the little ones ; but that would be quite 

 exceptional. Older children could sometimes look after 

 the younger ones ; but often, quite untrained as these 

 older children were, they could ill supply the mother's 

 place. Ordinarily, a child above the age of seven or 

 eight would be required to work, and then, in many 

 instances, young ones less than seven or eight had to 

 be left in the care of mere babies. Eightpence or nine- 

 pence a week was, nevertheless, all that a young child 

 of eight or nine could earn in the fields ; but even that 

 miserable sum was a not inappreciable item in the total 

 earnings of the family. 



Children had actually to be locked up in a cottage 

 under the charge of one no older than seven, and the 



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