258 BRITISH RURAL LIFE AND LABOUR. 



sixpence a day when she was twenty. She then further 

 advanced by steps to her maximum woman's pay of 

 ninepence a day that is, four-and-sixpence for a week ! 

 At harvest time, however, she could earn a shilling a 

 day, with an allowance of beer in addition. Her father, 

 she said, had died sixteen years before, at the age of 

 seventy-three ; but he had never, during his life, earned 

 more than nine shillings a week, and not unfrequently 

 only five. Her mother had done farm work for three 

 and sixpence a week, and had lived to the age of eighty- 

 five. Our informant had to work from eight until 

 eleven in the morning, with an interval then of two 

 hours for meals, and from one to five in the afternoon 

 that is, seven hours for a little more than a penny an 

 hour. But even this pay would be lost if wet weather 

 prevented her working, unless something under cover 

 could be found for her to do. Piecework at a penny 

 an hour ! Weeding, leading horses for ploughing, even 

 in the bitterest weather between Michaelmas and 

 Christmas, for a poor old woman of sixty-six ! Often 

 she got wet to the waist over her work, and frequently 

 shivered with the damp and cold. Naturally her food 

 was not luxurious chiefly bread, with an occasional 

 bit of bacon and three pennyworth of butchers' meat 

 in a week. There were " luxuries " in her weekly 

 dietary, namely, a quarter pound of butter, two ounces 

 of tea, and three quarters of a pound of sugar for the 

 whole week ; and they could only be regarded as luxuries 

 not always to be indulged in, for, although the nominal 

 earnings were ninepence a day, the net average for a 

 yeardeducting wet days with no wages amounted 

 to no more than three and sixpence per week ! 



Another member we met of the old school too aged 

 to benefit by the dawning improvement was an old 

 fellow of eighty-one. His life history was significant, 

 interesting, and yet representative. He began farm 

 work at eight, to the obvious neglect of school ; but 



