248 HAMPSHIRE DAYS 



may be that the women of this blonde type are more 

 subject to poverty of blood than others ; for the men, 

 though often thin, are not so excessively thin as 

 the women. Or it may be the effect of that kind of 

 poison which cottage women all over the country are 

 becoming increasingly fond of, and which is having so 

 deleterious an effect on the people in many counties 

 the tea they drink. Poison it certainly is : two or 

 three cups a day of the black juice which they obtain 

 by boiling and brewing the coarse Indian teas at a 

 shilling a pound which they use, would kill me in less 

 than a week. 



Or it may be partly the poison of tea and partly the 

 bad conditions, especially the want of proper food, in 

 the villages. One day on the downs near Winchester 

 I found a shepherd with his flock, a man of about fifty, 

 and as healthy and strong looking a fellow as I have 

 seen in Hampshire. Why was it, I asked him, that he 

 was the only man of his village I had seen with the 

 colour of red blood in his face ? why did they look so 

 unwholesome generally ? why were the women so thin, 

 and the children so stunted and colourless ? He said 

 he didn't know, but thought that for one thing they did 

 not get enough to eat. " On the farm where I work," 

 he said, " there are twelve of us nine men, all married, 

 and three boys. My wages are thirteen shillings, with 

 a cottage and garden ; I have no children, and I neither 

 drink nor smoke, and have not done so for eighteen 

 years. Yet I find the money is not too much. Of 



