THE RURAL EXODUS 7& 



Catholicism persisted, the folksongs and 

 madrigals of the countryside have for the most 

 part perished. Mr. Baring Gould and others 

 have successfully preserved some of these 

 local tunes and verses from Somersetshire and 

 Devon, and I have heard quaint lines sung 

 to unprinted melodies by old men in Oxford- 

 shire, which, words and tune alike, are nigh 

 unto vanishing away, for the young men and 

 maidens refuse to learn the old songs, and 

 when they sing at all use more or less obsolete 

 music-hall ditties from the towns. The 

 average concert in a country parish is an 

 artificial affair arranged by the " residents " 

 for the villagers, who accept the " good music ' v 

 of their " betters " more or less gratefully. 



There is a commonplace argument employed, 

 and doubtless believed, by certain apologists 

 for the existing conditions of rural life, that 

 the poorer people are " sportsmen " at heart 

 and staunch defenders of covert shooting and 

 fox-hunting. Beaters are required for the 

 wood, gateopeners for the hunt, barley for 

 the horses, and what would village life be 

 without the occasional " meet " on the green ? 

 It is sad indeed that such an argument should 

 be possible ; for to maintain that a miserably- 

 housed and ill-paid labourer derives keen 

 satisfaction from seeing well-to-do residents 



