THE COUNTRY-SIDE : SUSSEX. 83 



friends. Instead of a scarcity of labour, it is a matter 

 of privilege to get a bin allotted to you. There are no 

 rough folk down from Bermondsey or Mile End way. 

 All staid, stay-at-home, labouring people — no riots; a 

 little romping no doubt on the sly, else the maids would 

 not enjoy the season so much as they do. But there are 

 none of those wild hordes which collect about the 

 greater fields of Kent. Farmers' wives and daughters 

 and many very respectable girls go out to hopping, not 

 so much for the money as the pleasant out-of-door 

 employment, which has an astonishing effect on the 

 health. Pale cheeks begin to glow again in the hop- 

 fields. Children who have suffered from whooping-cough 

 are often sent out with the hop-pickers ; they play about 

 on the bare ground in the most careless manner, and 

 yet recover. Air and hops are wonderful restoratives. 

 After passing an afternoon with the drier in the kiln, 

 seated close to a great heap of hops and inhaling the 

 odour, I was in a condition of agreeable excitement all 

 the evening. My mind was full of fancy, imagination, 

 lowing with ideas ; a sense of lightness and joyousness 

 lifted me up. I wanted music, and felt full of laughter. 

 Like the half-fabled haschish, the golden bloom of the 

 hops had entered the nervous system ; intoxication with- 

 out wine, without injurious after-effect, dream intoxica- 

 tion ; they were wine for the nerves. If hops only grew 

 in the Far East we should think wonders of so powerful 

 a plant. At hop-picking a girl can earn about \os. a 

 week, so that it is not such a highly paid employment 

 as might be supposed from the talk there is about it. 

 The advantages are sideways, so to say ; a whole family 

 can work at the same time, and the sum-total becomes 

 considerable. Hopping happily comes on just after corn 

 harvest, so that the labourers get two harvest- times. 



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