202 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER. 



storm of protest. I received letters from ladies and gentlemen 

 living in country houses and from quite a number of country 

 parsons. The former were generally angry in tone ; the latter 

 sympathetic. A lady who stated she kept ten outdoor ser- 

 vants wanted to know why English labourers in the southern 

 counties who " spent their time in smoking and loafing for 

 their 155. a week could not live like the thrifty Scotch by 

 making two-thirds of their meals of porridge and milk say 

 3d. a day." 



A gentleman writing from a large country house main- 

 tained with righteous asseveration that " 155. a week was 

 quite sufficient to maintain our race in a state of physical 

 efficiency. If there is anything," he went on to say, " that 

 is undermining the thrifty habits of the country-side people, 

 it is the luxurious style of living pervading the whole 

 community. I give you one instance : the substitution of 

 packets of Quaker Oats, costingyd. , against good oatmeal cost- 

 ing 2d. Why is this ? Because they have lost the patience 

 to prepare and boil the oatmeal ; whereas the Quaker Oats 

 are ready at once." 



This quaint insistence by the rich, that those who perform 

 the hardest physical labour should live upon a monotonous 

 diet of oatmeal three times a day, recalls a discussion that 

 took place in the House of Commons towards the end of the 

 eighteenth century on the deplorably low standard of vitality 

 of the rural poor, resulting from the enclosures of commons 

 and the deprivation of cottage children of milk. 



When Members were making ponderous speeches over 

 the ignorance of the labourer who preferred white to brown 

 bread, Fox projected a gleam of humour into the discussion 

 by asking if any Members of that House could speak with any 

 authority on the subject of bread, as it appeared to form so 

 small a proportion of their daily diet ? 



It appeared to me as if the governing classes who live in 

 country houses had not progressed much in real knowledge 

 of life since the eighteenth century. A great change, how- 

 ever, had come over the ministers of religion. Papers 

 theologically so wide apart as the Catholic Times, the 

 Christian Globe, and the Commonwealth gave sympathetic 



