248 BRITISH RURAL LIFE AND LABOUR. 



munificent pay, gave them each a two-roomed hovel rent 

 free. This was reckoned as part of wages equal to 

 a shilling a week, and the daily two pints of cider at 

 another shilling. Thus the total earnings were no more 

 than eight shillings a week ; and many of the hovels 

 had no gardens whatever attached to them ; so that 

 the occupiers could not grow even a few potatoes to 

 supplement the starvation pay. The expression "starva- 

 tion pay " is used advisedly for families (sometimes 

 possibly, but very rarely, only two) usually consisted of 

 six, eight, and even more persons. The farmers' contri- 

 bution to what may be called the " benevolence " in 

 this district being sometimes the allowance, rent free, 

 of an eighth of an acre of potato-ground. 



