EARLY MANHOOD 8i 



the cottages, ' there is scarcely room for further improve- 

 ment ' in the new ones ; it is the hovels built by the 

 hands of squatters that are bad in every way. The 

 cottages have sufficient gardens : allotments have been 

 increased. Some towns have common lands ; and though 

 not in the use of labourers, ' they are in the hands of a 

 class to which the labourer often rises.' There has been 

 no extended strike in the county, because the labourers, 

 with ten to thirteen shillings a week, and the reapers, 

 with as much as ten shillings a day, are so well off. If 

 they cannot afford coal in the week, yet they buy a 

 little on Saturday night at two pounds a ton. One culti- 

 vator paid one hundred pounds in cash to one cottage in 

 the course of a year, ' showing the advantage the labourer 

 possesses over the mechanic, since his wife and child can 

 add to his income. Many farmers pay fifty and sixty- 

 pounds a year for labourers' beer, and let excellent cottages 

 at one shilling a week. He praises the Duke of Marl- 

 borough for only letting cottages to men who work on the 

 farms where they are situated. It is ' sheer cant ' to 

 say that the labourer has no chance of rising. He knows 

 of two who are now farmers ; and they can rise to be 

 head-carter, or cowman, or bailiff, and do petty dealing 

 in pigs and calves. The women are not handsome ; he 

 knows ' no peasantry so entirely uninviting.' They are 

 moral, and no evil comes of their rough jokes. As dairy- 

 maids they earn good wages, but they are poor workers 

 in the field. Friendly societies, ' patronized by gentry 

 and clergy,' are superseding the fatal mops and fairs, 

 with their drinking and immorality. But neither they 

 nor the men ever make a grateful remark, notwithstand- 

 ing that ' no class of persons in England receive so many 

 attentions and benefits from their superiors.' ' No term 

 is too strong in condemnation for those persons who 

 endeavour to arouse an agitation among a class of people 

 so short-sighted and so ready to turn against their own 

 benefactors and their own interest.' Those who blame 

 the farmers must remember that they work largely on 



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