APPENDIX TO MR. OLIVEr's ADDRESS. 45 



In confirmation of the correctness of the remarks made in 

 the foregoing Address, on the condition of the EngHsh Farm 

 laborer, the writer adds the following extracts from a very- 

 interesting work by F. A. Olrastead, a farmer of Staten Is- 

 land, N. Y. Mr. O. travelled in 1850-51, on foot, through the 

 Western and Southern Counties of England, and published 

 his observations under the title of " walks and Talks of an 

 American Farmer in England." 



" Our guide was a man of about forty, having a wife and 

 seven children; neither he nor any of his family (he thought) 

 could read or write, and, except with regard to his occupation 

 as agricultural laborer, I scarcely ever saw a man of so limited 

 information. He could tell us, for instance, almost no more 

 about the church which adjoined his residence, than if he bad 

 never seen it, — not half so much as we could discover for 

 ourselves by a single glance at it. He had nothing to say 

 about the clergyman that officiated in it, and could tell us 

 nothing about the parish, except its name, and that it allowed 

 him and five other labourers to occupy the " almshouse " we 

 had seen, rent free. He could'nt say how old he was, (he 

 appeared about forty,) but he could say, " like a book," that 

 God was what made the world, and that " Jesus Christ came 

 into the world to save sinners, of whom he was chief ;" — of 

 the truth of which latter clause I much doubted, suspecting 

 the arch fiend would rank higher among his servants, the man 

 whose idea of duty and impulse of love had been satisfied 

 with cramming this poor soul with such shells of spiritual 

 nourishment. He thought two of his children knew the 

 catechism and the creed ; did not think that they could have 

 learned it from a book ; they might, but he never heard them 

 read ; when he came home and had gotten his supper, he had 

 a smoke and then went to bed. His wages were seven shil- 

 lings, sometimes had been eight, a-week. None of his chil- 

 dren earned any thing ; his wife, it might be, did somewhat 

 in harvest-time. But take the year through, one dollar and 

 sixty-eight cents a-week was all they earned to support them- 

 selves and their large family. How could they live ? *' Why, 

 indeed, it was rather hard," he said ; "so hard, that sometimes, 

 if we'd believe him, it had been as much as he could do to 

 keep himself in tobacco ! " It is an actual fact, that he 

 mentioned this as if it was a vastly more memorable hardship 

 than that ofttimes he could get nothing more than dry bread 

 for his family to eat It was a common thing that they had 



