Condition of the Enylish Agricultural Labourer, 1871. 357 
tricts, for there are large numbers of Highland and Irish girls 
employed exclusively in farm labour, of whom it may be said 
they make no contribution to the illegitimate births." * 
Undoubtedly, however, the opinion of the majority of those 
in England who have studied the labourer's social position, and 
are anxious to elevate and improve it, is condemnatory of the 
employment of female labour as being unfeminine, and tending; 
to coarseness of manner and feeling ; and the opinion ' of an 
Oxfordshire clergyman very fairly expresses the general senti- 
ment : "Farm labour is very injurious to women morally ; thej 
gain coarse, rough, and immoral habits; it is very injurious 
domestically, their homes and families are miserably neglected." 
At the same time it is very clear that, with improved agri- 
culture, a great deal of light work, such as weeding, stone- 
gathering, potato-harvesting, fruit-gathering, not to speak of hay- 
time and harvest, demand labour in addition to that of adult 
males ; and the question we have to solve is, whether this work 
shall be done by young children of both sexes under thirteea 
years of age and by married women, or by young unmarried 
women above thirteen. Domestic service and dressmaking are 
supposed to be more refined pursuits than field work, but 
both these employments furnish a large proportion of the 
class who are a blot upon our civilization. One of the great 
problems of the day is to find suitable honest work for un- 
married women. Our towns are already thronged with many 
who are crying out for work. Field work is not unhealthy ; it 
need not be immoral. May we not have a lesson to learn from 
the Scotch and the Northumbrian ; and should we not pause 
before we condemn the labourer's daughter, who, by working 
in the field, can earn an honest livelihood, and allow her 
younger brothers and sisters to have their education more fully 
carried out, and her mother to perform the duties of the house- 
hold. By this work, too, she may, while remaining part of the 
family group, provide herself with some means to stock the 
house at her marriage, and be as fit a wife for the agricultural 
labourer as if she had been in domestic service. In Scotland,, 
the girl's providing at marriage generally consists of a chest 
of drawers, blankets, bed and table-linen, and crockery ; the 
man provides beds, tables, chairs, and dresser, &c. To carry 
out this system of labour, we require more cottages on the farms, 
and those of a superior class, in order that families may live 
together near their work. Doubtless, if the work of the farm 
could be done by men and boys over 13 years of age, entirely 
without women's help, and other fields of remunerative and 
* Fourth Report, 1871, p. 66. 
