Condition of the English Agricultural Labourer, 1871. 3G3 
of drink and tlie society of tlie ale-liouse ; — on tlie woman's, gos- 
sipping habits, and the want of good management and thrift. 
How often have we seen side by side families placed apparently 
in similar circumstances, and earning similar wages, and yet the 
house, the garden, and the children of the one comfortable and 
prosperous, and of the other untidy, mismanaged, and wasteful ; 
cither because the husband is fond of drink, or the wife is an 
unthrifty manager. A hind's wife in Northumberland truly 
said to Mr. Henley, " she had known two families next door 
earning the same money, the one saved enough to buy the cottage, 
the other could not live. It was all drink, so there is the 
difference." 
We cannot inculcate habits of prudence, or look for a higher 
social life in the agricultural labourer if he is badly housed ; 
and in the matter of cottages we have still much to accomplish. 
The field of labour is widened, fresh sources of employment 
are open to him, a higher and better paid class of labour in 
his own sphere arises from the employment of steam, and farmers 
begin to appreciate the necessity and advantage of finding 
continuous work for men all the year through ; but, in order 
to keep the best men at agricultural labour, more comfortable 
homes are required. The habits of social life are so changed 
that the farmer no longer sits at the head of the board with 
his hired servants as of old ; and a great demand is therefore 
made for cottages on the farm, in which married carters and 
shepherds may live, or where the servant lads may be boarded 
with the hind. There are great advantages both to the farmer 
and to the labourer from the residence of the labourer upon the 
farm ; and the distance from the school, the shop, and the church, 
are drawbacks which are perhaps counterbalanced by the distance 
from the beer-shop, and hy the practice of the village tradesmen 
sending round their carts at certain intervals to the outlying 
cottages, which is not unusual in some districts. But building cot- 
tages on farms, and generally making labourers' homes what we 
should wish them to be, is a task not easy of accomplishment, 
and can never be done until the land of England is in the hands 
of proprietors who not only have the wish, but the means to 
cany out a work which in itself gives only a small pecuniary 
return for the outlay. Honour is due, not only to the great 
territorial magnates of England, who have made their estates 
rich with comfortable homes and pleasant dwellings for the 
labourers upon them (and there are many of these whom we 
might name) ; but still more to many a landlord of only limited 
means and interest in his property, who is manfully striving 
to do what is right for his people, and sacrificing his own 
pleasures for what he conceives to be his duty to those who 
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