SEVEN YEARS AFTER 1880. 



CHAPTER XLI. 

 EYE-WITNESS EVIDENCE. 



A CHANGE of some importance had taken place in the 

 seven years since our first personal and other inquiries 

 in the, to a large extent, typical agricultural districts 

 of the West of England. One feature of the change 

 came out incidentally as we were seated in the train, 

 in 1880, on our way, in the first instance, to Wiltshire. 

 Two farmers came into the compartment we were 

 occupying, and a conversation ensuing between us 

 beginning with the weather and the crops it was 

 easily directed to the then position of the farm labourer. 

 One of the farmers gave expression to his opinion that 

 the Agricultural Children's Act had proved detrimental 

 both to the farmer and the men he employed. He 

 told us he was a large farmer in a rather outlying part 

 of Wiltshire. Education generally, he also argued, was 

 bad for master and man. The other farmer dissented 

 from this view, in so far, at least, as the peasantry were 

 concerned ; for he believed, and of course sensibly, that 

 an educated employe must prove a more useful servant 

 than one crassly ignorant, whatever his work might 

 be, and that his knowledge must necessarily be useful 

 to himself as well as to his master. At this point, 

 overcome by the delivery of so weighty a view, he fell 

 asleep, and his companion farmer number two was 



evidently relieved to find an opponent to his views 



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