Tlic Agricultural Labourer. 
801=535 
I have selected a very ordinary type for my specimen. I 
Ive only sketched the daily life of a fairly industrious, honest, 
ner, and steady fellow. I could instead have depicted the 
ceful and saving man, who did not marry until he and his 
jrtner had a good round sum in the savings-bank, and who by 
1 ddle age had succeeded in making himself the farmer and 
I ster instead of the servant ; or, on the other hand, I could have 
(] wn the idle, obstinate, disobedient, and drunken scamp, 
rose certain end, when not the gaol, is the workhouse, where 
h becomes by his frequent visits the bC'te noire of the guardians 
a . a constant burden on the funds of the ratepayer. However, 
its not worth while to trace the downward career of such a 
which may be easily imagined. 
have attempted in these pages to give a fair and unbiassed 
at )unt of the English labourer, a class with whom I have been 
la ely engaged, and of whom I can therefore lay claim to some 
k wledge. I have not concealed the defects in his character, 
m the causes which have conduced to foster those defects. The 
la administration of the Poor Law is, I believe, at the root of 
hi the ills suffered by the poor man ; and until the labourers 
of England, now in receipt of ample wages, learn the virtues of 
pilence and economy, of self-restraint and self-reliance — until, 
in. word, they copy (in these matters) the example of other Thrift little 
nsDHS than our own, and until thev feel that it is a shameful understood or 
, , , . ' - 1111 practised, as a 
thg that people, in many cases more need}- than themselves, rule. 
shJd be taxed for their improvidence and recklessness — it is, 
I : r, hopeless to look for their further advance. 
mong social problems of the present day, few are of greater 
ur jrtance perhaps to Englishmen than those which concern the 
wt -being of the working classes of their country. Much may be 
do to open their eyes to the advantage of prudence and fore- 
'"!^ht, and to help them to exercise these too much neglected 
ties ; but the day has now come when the labourer, if he^ is 
. ' >e in the social scale, must look mainly to himself. If in 
thdark days of the past the laws seemed against him, it is 
no inger so. He is a free man, free from conscription, or com- Advantages 
pu )ry service in the army, and the equal of those about him. la^ourer^inuTe 
Le.slation has done its best for him and his children. He is present day 
at berty to move wherever he can get the best return for his compared with 
labir. He is practicallv the only untaxed man in the com-* P^^*^- 
' ty, since (except in the article of tea, on which a small 
is still paid) he can if he chooses, by abstinence from those 
es, avoid the imposts on beer, spirits, and tobacco. An 
rable and, practically, free education is granted to his 
3 H 2 
