216 MY LIFE [Chap. 



air. The men at the large works, such as Merthyr Tydfil, are more gaudy 

 in their dress, and betray themselves much more quickly than the colliers 

 of many other districts. 



It is an undoubted fact, too, that the persons engaged in the collieries 

 and ironworks are far more intellectual than the farmers, and pay more 

 attention to their own and their children's education. Many of them 

 indeed are well informed on most subjects, and in every respect much 

 more highly civilized than the farmer. 



The wages which these men get— in good times £2 or £$ per week — 

 prevents them, with moderate care, from being ever in any great distress. 

 They likewise always live well, which the poor farmer does not, and 

 though many of them have a bit of land and all a potato ground, the 

 turnpike grievances, poor-rates, and tithes do not affect them as com- 

 pared with the farmers, to whom they are a grievous burden, making 

 the scanty living with which they are contented hard to be obtained. 



The rents, too, continue the same as when their produce sold for 

 much more and the above-mentioned taxes were not near so heavy. The 

 consequence is that the poor farmer works from morning to night after 

 his own fashion, lives in a manner which the poorest English labourer 

 would grumble at, and as his reward, perhaps, has his goods and stock 

 sold by his landlord to pay the exorbitant rent, averaging 8s, or 10s. per 

 acre for such land as I have described. 



Language, Character, etc. 



The Welsh farmer is a veritable Welshman. He can speak English 

 but very imperfectly, and has an abhorrence of all Saxon manners and 

 innovations. He is frequently unable to read or write, but can some- 

 times con over his Welsh Bible, and make out an unintelligible bill ; and 

 if in addition he can read a little English and knows the four first rules 

 of arithmetic, he may be considered a well-educated man. The women 

 almost invariably neither read nor write, and can scarcely ever under- 

 stand two words of English. They fully make up for this, however, by 

 a double share of volubility and animation in the use of their own lan- 

 guage, and their shrill clear voices are indications of good health, and 

 are not unpleasant. The choleric disposition usually ascribed to the 

 Welsh is, I think, not quite correct. Words do not often lead to blows, 

 as they take a joke or a satirical expression very good humouredly, and 

 return it very readily. Fighting is much more rarely resorted to than in 

 England, and it is, perhaps, the energy and excitement with which they 

 discuss even common topics of conversation that has given rise to the 

 misconception. They have a ready and peculiar wit, something akin to 

 the Irish, but more frequently expressed so distantly and allegorically as 

 to be unintelligible to one who does not understand their modes ot 

 thought and peculiarities of idioms, which latter no less than the former 

 they retain even when they converse in English. They are very proud 

 of their language, on the beauty and expression of which they will 



