410 



Farming of Lincolnshire. 



them to pay heavy rents for mean dwelHngs in consequence of an 

 undue competition in the freehold villages. It is unjust to 

 accumulate hardships upon the toiling classes, to rob them of that 

 time which might be devoted to the improvement of their mental 

 and moral faculties, and deprive them of opportunities for adding 

 to their domestic comforts; and unjust also to the parishes in 

 which the labourers herd together, the rates of which the neigh- 

 bouring but unneighbourly townships are relieved falling with 

 greater burden upon the populous ones ; the system being like- 

 wise not only a shirking of honest liabilities by those who ought 

 to pay them, and an imposition of those debts upon others, but 

 (contrary to design) an actual increasing of the whole poor's- 

 rate — for how can the privations of insufficient house-room and 

 extra labour tend to anything but a greater degree of poverty and 

 suffering and a wider demand for relief? And this practice is 

 not only disgraceful^ but impolitic ; for how are the labouring 

 population to respect and honour the higher classes under such 

 treatment as this ; when, from the doubled value of the land, 

 the least that could be expected is that the proprietors should 

 provide suitable houses at low rents for the class by whose in- 

 dustry they have profited ? It is unwise and imprudent, because 

 the farmers also suffer by it; the men will not go to the more 

 distant occupations, until every source fails them nearer home 

 and distress obliges them to this extra toil, so that hands are often 

 scarce in remote situations. Again, in some critical seasons, when 

 workmen must be had, they will not labour for the usual number 

 of hours in consequence of their long morning and evening 

 journeys, and the farmer has to employ an extra man to make up 

 for the loss of time. This is therefore a question between land- 

 lords and tenants ; and in the present state of the times the latter 

 feel entitled to claim every reasonable advantage. Finally, it may 

 be safely inferred that whatever tends to the improvement of the 

 labourer's condition is a benefit to the farmer and landowner, and 

 a profit to the whole community, and that anything which injures 

 and degrades his social well-being is also a loss to the perpetrator 

 and a wrong to society. 



A word now as to the labourer's diet. Probably, very few 

 families make iheir own bread, except from the flour of their 



gleant corn/' and though the profits of the bakers in a rural 

 district are usually considered to be none of the smallest, it is 

 likely that the expediency of the custom may be accounted for on 

 the principle of the division of labour. But the poor generally 

 purchase the finest loaves — a practice seemingly of unnecessary 

 expense, but which may be both reprobated and defended. The 

 «ame weight of bread made of " thirds" flour would cost less by 

 Is. or \s. 6d. per week, and be much more wholesome and nutri- 



