WAGES ADVANCED. 265 



twelve shillings a week prevailed at Fontmell-Magnus. 

 At another village, Iwerne Courtney, extensive building 

 operations, involving appreciable competition for labour, 

 had caused farm wages to rise to as much as thirteen 

 and fourteen shillings a week. Similarly at Thorny- 

 combe, a very pretty village, as its name would seem to 

 suggest, two miles from the town of Blandford, and 

 again at Milborne St. Andrew, wages ranged from 

 eleven to thirteen shillings a week ; and at Puddleton, 

 not very far from the county town of Dorsetshire, 

 wages had rather a long range, from ten to fourteen 

 shillings per week. Women earned eightpence a day, 

 both in summer and winter, but during the harvest a 

 shilling a day. 



Proceeding to Devonshire, and selecting representa- 

 tive districts, we found that around Honiton wages were 

 from ten to twelve shillings a week, and around the 

 cathedral city of Exeter they went as high as fourteen 

 shillings. At Teignmouth an Inland Revenue officer 

 and collector of agricultural statistics in an extensive 

 district around informed us that, whilst the average pay 

 was about eleven shillings, and inferior men could only 

 get nine, first-rate men could command thirteen shillings. 

 Of that important and very beautiful part of Devon 

 called the South Hams a correspondent, writing to us 

 from Kingsbridge, said : 



" Twenty years ago the wages of an able-bodied labourer 

 in this district did not exceed eight shillings per week ; 

 but then it was supplemented by a sort of truck. The peasant 

 got what corn he wanted for his family at twelve shillings 

 per bag for wheat, and six shillings per bag for barley ; 

 and as that price was generally under the market value, 

 it was considered equivalent to an addition of so much 

 to the wages. This system, however, while it generally 

 ensured the family a supply of bread, did not work well, 

 as a labourer often complained that he got the inferior 

 corn. How the peasant subsisted and reared his family 

 on such a pittance has often been a matter of wonder to 

 me. The wages in this district now range from twelve 

 to fifteen shillings per week ; and in most farms the men 



