76 FIELD AND HEDGEROW. 
THE COUNTRY SIDE: SUSSEX. 
I 
‘ON the wall of an old barn by the great doors there stil! 
remains a narrow strip of notice-board, much battered 
and weather-beaten : ‘ Beware of steel > can be read, 
the rest has been broken off, but no doubt it was ‘traps.’ 
‘ Beware of steel traps,’ a caution to thieves—a reminis- 
cence of those old days which many of our present 
writers and leaders of opinion seem to think never 
existed. When the strong labourer could hardly earn 
7s. a week, when in some parishes scarcely half the 
population got work at all, living, in the most literal 
sense, on the parish, when bread was dear and the loat 
was really life itself, then that stern inscription had 
meaning enough. The granaries were full, the people 
half starved. The wheat was threshed by the flail in 
full view of the wretched, who could gaze through the 
broad doors at the golden grain; the sparrows helped 
themselves, men dare not. At night men tried to steal 
the corn, and had to be prevented by steel traps, like 
rats. To-day wheat is so cheap, it scarcely pays to carry 
it to market. Some farmers have it ground, and sell 
the flour direct to the consumer ; some have used it for 
feeding purposes—actually for hogs. The contrast is 
extraordinary. Better let the hogs eat the corn than 
