Agricultural Wages 113 



in mining and manLiactures, the rural 

 population was so abundant that there was 

 not enough work to go round ; the land- 

 owners and farmers had to support large 

 numbers of able - bodied men and their 

 families, and were nearly ruined in extreme 

 cases by the rates. In 1851 Caird tells us 

 that in the Southern counties, whilst the 

 agricultural labourer gained only a scanty 

 subsistence, he was everywhere felt as a 

 burden and not a benefit to his employer. 

 The degradation of village life was often 

 as low as in the slums of the great cities, 

 and on the whole, the work performed by 

 the women and children was almost as bad 

 as that in the mines, from which also it has 

 disappeared. Consider the " gang " system ; 

 look at the crowding in the open villages ; 

 think that all the earnings of all the 

 members of the family were not sufficient 

 to provide a living wage, and had to be 



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