THE RURAL PROBLEM 11 



out at 8 and returned at 8. They had also, of course, to 

 al lend to the feeding and cleaning of the horses at home.* 



Marshall's Review of Reports to the Board of Agriculture 

 for the Midland Department of England gives particulars 

 of the working time in the various counties. In Bedfordshire 

 it was from 6 to 2 or 7 to 3 in the summer, and from daylight 

 till 1 or 2 in the afternoon in the winter, with an interruption 

 for a meal about 10 called " beaver-time." In Warwickshire 

 it was from 6 to 2 or 7 to 3 in summer, and in winter about 

 6 hours. In Hampshire the rural labourers seldom reached 

 work in winter before 8 or 9, or even 9.30, and left about 3 ; 

 while in summer they would generally be met returning from 

 work about 5 ; the reason given being that they had a great 

 choice of occupation there, and could not be got to work 

 longer at day work on a farm than other labourers wrought 

 at task work in the forests or at the salt pans, or on the 

 canals, or at the variety of jobs to be found at Portsmouth. 



In agriculture, as in other occupations, the very long 

 working day seems to have been the gradual fruit of the 

 industrial revolution. But whereas in many other trades 

 there have been reductions of hours which have brought back 

 the working day to what it was three or four hundred years 

 ago, in agriculture there has been no swing of the pendulum. 



§ 3. Other Family Earnings. 



In estimating the poverty of the labourer and his family 

 it is only fair to take into consideration the possibility (1) of 

 the wage-earner adding to his wages by extra work outside 

 his regular employment, and (2) of other members of his 

 family adding to his income. 



These two possibilities — and it will be seen that they 

 are sufficiently remote — do not detract from the folly, 

 amounting to a national scandal, of leaving the workers of 

 the largest single industry of the country sweated and under- 

 paid. But they do mitigate, in a few cases at least, the indi- 

 vidual hardships ; and no picture of the agricultural 

 labourer's position is complete until they have been taken 

 into consideration. 



* Agriculture of Buckingham, James Malcolm (1794), p. 39. 



