THE COUNTRY-SIDE: SUSSEX. 83 
friends. Instead of a scarcity of labour, it is a matter 
of privilege to get a bin allotted to you. There are no 
rough folk down from Bermondsey or Mile End way. 
All staid, stay-at-home, labouring people—no riots; a 
little romping no doubt on the sly, else the maids would 
not enjoy the season so much as they do. But there arc 
none of those wild hordes which collect about the 
greater fields of Kent. Farmers’ wives and daughters 
and many very respectable girls go out to hopping, not 
so much for the money as the pleasant out-of-door 
employment, which has an astonishing effect on: the 
health. Pale cheeks begin to glow again in the hop- 
fields. Children’'who have suffered from whooping-cough 
are often sent out with the hop-pickers ; they play about 
on the bare ground in the most careless manner, and 
yet recover. Air and hops ‘are wonderful restoratives. 
After passing an afternoon with the drier in the kiln, 
seated close to a great heap of hops and inhaling the 
odour, I was in a condition of agreeable excitement all 
the evening. My mind was full of fancy, imagination, 
flowing with ideas ; a sense of lightness and joyousness 
lifted me up. I wanted music, and felt full of laughter. 
Like the half-fabled haschish, the golden bloom of the 
hops had entered the nervous system ; intoxication with- 
out wine, without injurious after-effect, dream intoxica- 
tion ; they were wine for the nerves. If hops only grew 
in the Far East we should think wonders of so powerful 
a plant. At hop-picking a girl can earn about Ios.a 
week, so that it is not such a highly paid employment 
as might be supposed from the talk there is about it. 
The advantages are sideways, so to say ; a whole family 
can work at the same time, and the sum-total becomes 
considerable. Hopping happily comes on just after corn 
harvest, so that the labourers get two harvest-times. 
G2 
