276 BRITISH RURAL LIFE AND LABOUR. 



the farms were small, and rented by a class of plain, hard- 

 working farmers ; but during the last quarter of a century 

 the small farms have been massed together, and the large 

 farms thus made are rented by gentlemen farmers, living in 

 quite palatial residences. Manual labour is being put off the 

 land by machinery. Standing on an eminence and taking 

 a survey of the surrounding country, one is pained to note 

 how few cottages and homesteads the eye encounters, while 

 our towns are growing to a great and, I fear, dangerous 

 extent. The evil tendency of this system will be that there 

 will be no middle class in the country between the gentleman 

 farmer and the peasant." 



In Dorsetshire we were also convinced of improve- 

 ment in peasant dwellings, and we noted, with great 

 satisfaction, that the good ones predominated. For 

 instance, at Melbury Abbas, two miles from the town 

 of Shaftesbury, on a hilly slope, a most healthy situation, 

 we found two prettily vine-clad cottages. In each of 

 these were three bedrooms and one sitting-room. One 

 was occupied by a labourer and his wife and six children 

 very different from the one, small, sleeping-chamber 

 and eight children. Good gardens, too, were attached 

 to the cottages. Four pounds per annum, or a trifle 

 more than eight eenpence a week, was the very moderate 

 rental. In an adjoining village, Compton Abbas, no 

 complaint was made either as to the number or the 

 condition of its cottages. Again, in a village of some 

 size, Font mill Magnus, we found a good number of 

 quite excellent dwellings, stone built, substantial, and 

 of pretty design, in the majority of cases each having 

 two or three bedrooms. Also at Iwerne Courtney, 

 where the property belonged to a nobleman who had 

 been a prominent Member of the House of Commons, 

 the general verdict as to cottages was " good." In 

 some cases, and not a few, they were, in fact, all that 

 could be desired. We noted, too, on the occasion of 

 our visit, that some rather extensive building operations 

 were in progress, all for new cottages ; and it was clear 

 from our inspection that the owners were intending to 

 make them so as to provide a maximum of accommoda- 



