I 



THE LABOURER 209 



income. This being so, it is not surprising that he was often 

 drunken and reckless, and ready to come on the parish for 

 relief. To labour incessantly, often with wife and boys, to live 

 very poorly, yet not even make both ends meet, was enough 

 to kill all spirit in any one. 



A great evil from which the labourer suffered was the 

 restrictions thrown on him of settling in another parish. If 

 he desired to take his labour to a better market he often 

 found it closed to him. His marriage was discouraged,^ because 

 a single man did not want a cottage and a married one did. 

 To ease the rates there was open war against cottages, and 

 many were pulled down.^ If a labourer in a parish to which 

 he did not legally belong signified his intention of marrying, 

 he immediately had notice to quit the parish and retire to his 

 own, unless he could procure a certificate that neither he nor 

 his would be chargeable. If he went to his own parish he 

 came off very badly, for they didn't want him, and cottages 

 being scarce he probably had to put up with sharing one with 

 one or more families. Sensible men cried out for the total 

 abolition of the poor laws, the worst effects of which were still 

 to be felt. 



Yet there was a considerable migration of labour at harvest 

 time when additional hands were needed. Labourers came 

 from neighbouring counties, artisans left their workshops in 

 the towns, Scots came to the Northern counties, Welshmen 

 to the western, and Irishmen appeared in many parts ; and 

 they were as a rule supplied by a contractor.^ 



London was regarded as a source of great evil to the country 

 by attracting the young and energetic thither. It used, men 



' Farmer's Letters, i. 300. 



* The pulling down of cottages began to be complained of in the 

 seventeenth century ; they harboured the poor, who were a charge upon 

 the parish, and repairs were saved. — Transactions Royal Historical 

 Society (New Series), xix. 120. 



' Hasbach, op. cit. 82 ; Clarke, General View of Herefordshire, p. 29; 

 Marshall, Review of Northern Department, p. 375. 



