178 Slaney on Rural Expenditure. 



That this is no exaggerated picture, no hypothetical 

 reasoning, all who trace the moral history of the agricultural 

 poor will be convinced. In the south of England, their con- 

 dition, with regard to the wages of labour, is much worse than 

 it is in the north of England ; and, in general, we shall find 

 that the degradation of their character follows in the same 

 track. Go into the counties of Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk, Surrey, 

 Sussex, Hampshire, &c (we mention these because they are 

 purely agricultural counties), and you will find the labourers 

 miserably off; idle, because they cannot get work on any 

 terms, or working hard for a most miserable pittance : and in 

 these counties you will be stunned with complaints of thefts of 

 all descriptions, from depredations on gates and hedges to 

 most alarming and serious robberies, committed by persons of 

 both sexes, and of all ages, from childhood that can barely carry 

 off the fruit of its plunder. This, however, is only one 

 proof of its depraved character; a change in feeling and 

 manners, indicated by fawning at one time, and insolence at 

 another ; by a total loss of independence of mind ; by acts of 

 low and disgusting profligacy, too strongly point out the 

 change in character and principle that has taken place. Let 

 a person read the description of the English peasantry given 

 by writers at the beginning and middle of the last century, 

 and then let him visit any of the counties above specified, and 

 he will be struck with the contrast between what he has read 

 and what he sees and hears. 



As we advance to the north of England, we find the condi- 

 tion of the peasantry better than it is in the south ; their wages 

 higher, their cottages more comfortable and cleanly, and 

 better furnished; their wives and children better clad and 

 more industrious, and some little provision made for the day 

 of sickness, the season of old age, and for their offspring. 

 Along with this not unfavourable condition will be found a 

 much higher and firmer tone of moral feeling and principle ; 

 an enlightened sense of duty, and an anxious desire to act con- 

 sistently with it. 



These two circumstances being thus almost uniformly found 

 together, what inference ought we to draw from their con- 

 junction ? — - that condition acts on character, or that character 

 acts on condition, or that they act mutually on each other ? 

 We think the last inference is the most substantially founded. 

 But then another question arises : allowing reciprocal action 

 of character and condition, in whichever of those the change 

 first took place, it is obvious that circumstances must have 

 produced this change. Supposing that a change in moral 



