288 BRITISH RURAL LIFE AND LABOUR. 



now keep in stock almost every necessary that the peas- 

 antry require not forgetting the luxury of tobacco, which 

 is very largely indulged in by the peasant of to-day." 



Anent tobacco, it may here be noted that by no means 

 unfrequently has chewing it been resorted to, to stay 

 the natural craving for unobtainable food. 



From Somersetshire came the short note of a corre- 

 spondent, who said 



" I often hear farm labourers remark on the difference 

 between their food now and what it used to be in their 

 younger days, when horse beans were the sole provision 

 after a hard day's work. This year, however, in this 

 district, a very splendid potato crop is being dug." 



A large employer of agricultural and other labour in 

 Somersetshire wrote to us : 



" The peasant's food usually consists of a breakfast 

 (before seven a.m.) of bread and bacon or dripping, with 

 fried potatoes ; a lunch, at about ten or eleven, of bread 

 and cheese and cider ; dinner, if taken in the fields, of bread 

 and cold bacon or other cold meat, washed down with cider, 

 or, if near enough to home, of a dish of hot vegetables with 

 a little meat. Further, the peasant has a slight meal of 

 bread and cheese at about four o'clock, and a substantial 

 supper, soon after leaving work, of hot vegetables with 

 meat or fish of some kind, boiled or fried, and tea and 

 bread and butter the whole making a grand total of no 

 inconsiderable amount, and which only fairly hard work 

 and fresh air enable him to digest. I should say that the 

 pig no inconsiderable factor of the family supply is 

 very generally kept here, and is certainly looked upon, 

 and justly so, as the poor man's ' savings bank.' It is, 

 indeed, a fact, that but for the pig the money spent by the 

 labourer upon his food would either be wasted by his wife 

 in finery, or by himself at the public-house. The important 

 animal is usually purchased for about twenty shillings, 

 and is kept on and fattened until it attains a weight of nine 

 ' score ' or upwards. Then it affords a large supply of 

 good, wholesome, solid meat, which lasts a long time, and 

 is, in fact, usually in stock until another pig is ready for 

 the knife." 



It will be important to note that this particular 

 correspondent had the reputation of being a very 

 liberal employer, who gave his men two shillings a 



