THE LABOURER'S COTTAGE 385 



The great difference between the wages of the north and 

 the south is a clear proof that the wages of the agricultural 

 labourer are not dependent on the prices of agricultural 

 produce, for those were the same in both regions. It was unmis- 

 takably due to the greater demand for labour in the north. 



The housing of the labourer was, especially in the south, 

 often a black blot on English civilization. PVom many 

 instances collected by an inquirer in 1844 the following may 

 be taken. At Stourpaine in Dorset, one bedroom in a cottage 

 contained three beds occupied by eleven people of all ages 

 and both sexes, with no curtain or partition whatever. At 

 Milton Abbas, on the average of the last census there were 

 thirty-six persons in each house, and so crowded were they 

 that cottagers with a desire for decency would combine and 

 place all the males in one cottage, and all the females in 

 another. But this was rare, and licentiousness and im- 

 morality of the worst kind were frequent.^ 



As for the farmer, the stock raiser was doing better than 

 the corn grower. The following table shows the rent of 

 cultivated land per acre, the produce of wheat per acre in 

 bushels, the price of provisions, wages of labour, and rent of 

 cottages in England at the date of Young's tours, about 

 1770, and of Caird's in 1850 : ^ 



Price per lb. of 

 Bread. Meat. Butter. 

 \\d. i\d. 6d. 

 l\d. ^d. IS. 



Labourer's wages 



per week. 



ys. id. 



9J. jd. 



Thus in eighty years the average rent of arable land rose 



^ Cobden's Speech, March 12, 1844. 



^ Caird, English Farming, 1 850-1, p, 474. 



' Mr, Pusey, one of the best informed agriculturists of the day, estimated 

 the produce of wheat per acre in 1840 at 26 bushels. — R. A. S. E. Journal^ 

 1890, p. 20. 



