90 



Farming of Northamptonshire. 



managed, the landlord of the public-house where they are held 

 getting some share of the contributions, still they are very excel- 

 lent institutions, and often cheer and support the family when the 

 head of it is laid low upon a bed of sickness or of death. 



The dwellings of the agricultural labourers are very diversified 

 in their style, size, and accommodation ; some of them being built 

 with mud and plaster, very low, having dirt or stone floors, and 

 covered with thatch ; others are built with stone or brick, but very 

 small, and thatched ; one room on the ground-floor, with a pantry 

 under the stairs, and one room above, are all the accommodation 

 which many of them contain, for the parents and a family of chil- 

 dren. In some of the larger villages, where the land is good, and 

 the materials for building nigh at hand, there are some very good 

 comfortable cottages, with two rooms below and two above ; but 

 the greater part of the abodes of the farm-labourers throughout the 

 county are in a neglected state. It would be well if more atten- 

 tion was paid to this part of our rural economy, because the com- 

 fort, cleanliness, and decency of the cottage of the working man 

 is of considerable importance in the formation of the character of 

 his children. One great barrier to the improvement of them 

 arises from many of the cottages being nominally the property of 

 the occupier. The labourers having been permitted to run up 

 mud cottages on the waste ground, upon paying an annual quit- 

 rent to the lord of the manor, become very tenacious of any inter- 

 ference, and upon the principle of an " Englishman's house being 

 his castle," bid defiance to all sanitary measures of improvement. 

 Others again are freeholds, legally belonging to the occupier, but 

 who is frequently saddled with the yearly payment of interest to 

 the mortgagee, equal probably to its annual value, and he there- 

 fore cannot keep the property in tenantable repair, still he clings 

 with fondness to the " home of his fathers," and wishes to die 

 there, providing the " old house " will last as long as his own 

 " clayey tenement." 



There has been a considerable emigration from the populous 

 rural villages during the last few years. Several hundreds of 

 labourers with their families have been forwarded to the different 

 colonies. It has been adopted to lessen the pressure upon the 

 poor-rates, caused by a superabundant population ; but I do not 

 feel at liberty to go further into the question, considering it is not 

 the design of this Report to enter too deeply into the domestic 

 economy of the agricultural labourer ; my business is more to give 

 evidence of facts than to state opinions of my own ; still I would 

 suggest, that one of the remedies for the present want of employ- 

 ment consists in a higher and more profitable cultivation of the 

 soil, thereby producing a greater demand for the labour of the 

 working man. 



