WAGES ADVANCED. 267 



time twelve shillings a week in money may be reckoned 

 the average rate at which agricultural labourers are hired ; 

 but it is not usual for them to have perquisites added when 

 paid at this rate. During the last twenty years, our agri- 

 culturists have hired outdoor labourers in preference to 

 indoor, and a large number of these have duties assigned 

 them out of the hours of their usual daily service namely, 

 to attend on the cattle, and to see to the horses, etc. ; 

 and for this extra work a cottage with garden is usually 

 given free of rent, making the wages in such cases amount 

 to fourteen shillings a week. The wives of the labourers, 

 in a large number of cases, earn a little by sewing gloves 

 for the glove manufacturers, who carry on a considerable 

 trade, the centre of which is Torrington. But women 

 do not commonly work in the open fields. They some- 

 times, however, go out for the day as washerwomen, 

 and earn a shilling and their food in each instance, for 

 their day's service. Taking the whole of a labourer's 

 earnings into account, I am satisfied that they amount to 

 10 a year for each family above what was obtained twenty 

 years ago." 



Of another portion, the extreme western one, of Devon, 

 another medical correspondent spoke as follows : 



" The district of which Halsworthy (a busy, thriving 

 little market town, recently blessed with railway com- 

 munication) is the centre is probably the most uninterest- 

 ing in Devonshire. It is purely agricultural, and consists, 

 for the most part, of moorland. It is very sparsely popu- 

 lated, there being about one person to every eight acres. 

 The usual wage is about ten or twelve shillings per week, 

 with cottage, and certain perquisites. As tiller of the soil, 

 it is notorious that the present labourer, as an ' all-round ' 

 man, is greatly inferior to his predecessor of twenty or 

 thirty years ago. The system of apprenticeships pro- 

 duced labourers that cannot be matched now either for 

 morality or usefulness. This applies to female domestics 

 as well as to men." 



The rise of wages had also extended to Somersetshire. 

 Giving illustrative districts we may briefly mention 

 Milverton, where we found the rate from ten to twelve 

 shillings a week ; and here it was rather interesting to 

 note that the scarcity of cider at the time of our inquiry 

 had caused farmers to discontinue giving it to their 

 men and to pay them extra money in lieu of it the 

 amount of compensation varying from a shilling to 

 fifteenpence a week. When it Came to paying for the 



