88 THE LIFE OF RICHARD JEFFERIES 



flowing into the water-supply, because ' farmers dislike 

 meddling with other people's business ' ; his ' feelings as 

 a gentleman ' enable him to ride past overcrowded cot- 

 tages, etc., and say nothing. Neither Vestry, nor Board 

 of Guardians, nor Highway Board has in practice any 

 valuable effect. A village esprit de corps should be 

 created. A village council might be able to bring a good 

 water-supply to the parish ; to provide a village bathing- 

 place, a rough gymnasium, annual games, a reading-room, 

 an excursion to London or the sea. ' With every respect 

 for the schoolmaster, let the schoolmaster be kept away 

 from it.' Such a council would look after drainage and the 

 rebuilding of cottages, to be paid for, perhaps, by annual 

 instalments ; provide common lands, a cotteige hospital, 

 cookery classes, entertainments ; and settle local disputes. 

 But it must be founded on ' the will of the inhabitants,' 

 not forced upon them. 



In ' The Power of the Farmer ' he expects the Board of 

 Guardians, composed of farmers and landed gentry, to 

 show some tyranny towards the labourers by way of re- 

 prisal. Farmers will win in their contest with the 

 Labourers' Unions because they have money, and their 

 landlords, seeing that ' their interests are identical,' will 

 stand by them. He favours blacklegs, and thinks that 

 the Union's tactics are bad in deporting men, and so re- 

 lieving the farmers of the need to support them at the 

 workhouse. Arbitration he distrusts. He does not dwell 

 on the possibility that there is something deeply wrong, 

 if not in the region of party politics, when the land is 

 left idle and only the men who could till it suffer. 



In ' Unequal Agriculture ' he contrasts the modern 

 farm, with steam-plough, new cowsheds, etc., with the 

 old-fashioned one, moated by liquid manure. The 

 country ought to be ' equally highly cultivated every- 

 where.' 



In ' The Future of County Society,' he points out that 

 wliile the country clergy have great prestige and immense 

 opportunities, ' a picture of tlie nineteenth century 



