356 Condition of the English Agricultural Labourer, 1871. 
" On the whole it is quite clear that it is the exception rather 
than the rule for a woman to go to work in the fields." * In 
Hampshire, " where wages are low, the employment of women 
it almost universal, and does lead to a want of love of home, and 
to a neglect of the best interests of the family," t Mr. Stanhope, 
in his general remarks on Dorset, Kent, &c., says, " The in- 
creasing disinclination of women to undertake anything but light 
and occasional out-door labour was everywhere apparent." % 
There can be no doubt that much discouragement is thrown 
by the clergy and landowners upon the employment of women 
in outdoor labour, and that the immoralities and hideous vice 
exposed by the reports on the gang system created a great 
distaste to such employment. The prevalence of bastardy, and 
the great number of illegitimate births in Scotland and North- 
umberland, lead many to connect the employment of women in 
agriculture and this sin as cause and effect. Again, too, it is 
generally stated and believed that such women make bad house- 
wives and mothers, and drive their husbands to the public- 
liouse by their improvidence and neglect of comfort at home. 
As to immorality, Mr. Henley quotes the Rev. Thomas 
Knight, of Ford, who says, " There can be little doubt that the 
employment of females in agriculture is one of the causes of the 
low state of morality in this district. Yet in justice it ought to 
be mentioned that, though the tone of morality is low, the 
-crimes of infanticide and adultery are unknown. The women 
who have once fallen never become utterly depraved, but gene- 
rally marry and turn out good wives." § Again, in Lincolnshire, 
Miss Boucherett says, " Field work is often rough for girls, but 
it is not necessarily immoral. What has given it a bad name is 
that it is the only means girls who have lost their characters 
liave of getting an honest living." Mr. Boyle, writing of Wales, 
says, " Opinions generally were expressed in favour of women's 
labour, that it does not demoralize the women themselves, and 
that their homes are quite as tidy as those of the women who 
are at home all day. Certainly, speaking from my own expe- 
rience, it was impossible to judge from the appearance of a 
•cottage whether the mistress works out or not." || Mr. Culley 
^contrasts field-work favouraljly with plait-work and lace-making, 
as far as morality is concerned ; and, remarking on the pre- 
valence of immorality as measured by illegitimacy in Scotland, 
he observes, " There is a very strong indication that farm labour 
cannot be charged with being: the cause of this in rural dis- 
ci o 
* First Report, 1868, p. 111. t Second Report, 1869, p. 35. 
X Ibid., p. 14. § First Report, 1868, p. 59. 
11 Third Report, 1870, p. 60. 
