EYE-WITNESS EVIDENCE. 257 



hors de combat, and so returned, with renewed insist- 

 ence, to his view as to the Agricultural Children's Act, 

 which, though largely inoperative, was intended to do 

 for rural districts what the elementary Education Acts 

 had effected in cities and towns. The Agricultural 

 Children's Act, this farmer insisted, was the principal 

 cause of the then existing agricultural depression ! 

 Upon probing this somewhat extraordinary view to its 

 source, we discovered that it was a purely personal ex- 

 perience that had caused him to form his conclusion. 

 The Act had been put into operation in his district, 

 he explained, with the result that it had deprived him 

 of a good deal of very cheap labour. Formerly, on his 

 extensive farm, where he kept a considerable number of 

 horses, he had been in the habit of utilising labourers' 

 children to look after them whilst they grazed upon 

 the hedge sides on the lanes around. The children's 

 duty was simply to prevent the horses from straying. 

 Now, he said bitterly, he could no longer do this, because 

 the district educational authorities insisted upon the 

 children going to school. So a much larger supply of 

 corn than of yore was needed for the feed of the animals, 

 and it amounted to an extra cost to him of a hundred 

 and twenty pounds per annum. This circumstance 

 having caused him to be depressed, he looked at things 

 in general through the medium of his own feelings, 

 for in other ways we ascertained he had not suffered so 

 much as agriculturists generally. 



Our first encounter, in the itinerary we had planned 

 from village to village, was a poor old woman, whose 

 age had precluded her from benefiting by the improve- 

 ments that had occurred since our previous visits of 

 inquiry. She was sixty-six years of age, and told us 

 that she had begun work on a farm at thirteen. Her 

 earnings then were threepence a day, but advanced 

 from year to year by stages to fourpence, fivepence, 

 and sixpence respectively. She had only attained to 



