Farming of Oxfordsldre. 
265 
arranged as in most agricultural districts ; but it must not be 
supposed that much may not yet be done in the way of im- 
provement, or that cottages are nearly perfect. Far otherwise. 
One great hindrance to the elevation of our labouring poor is the 
defective accommodation in cottages, many of which have only 
one bed-room. So long as this is the case ministers may preach, 
and the legislature pass sanitary measures, but the moral and 
physical contagion will be unchecked. Parents and children, 
grown boys and girls, are huddled together in the same room, 
nay, sometimes in the same bed — a state of things destructive of 
all sense of decency and self-respect. It is very well for cholera 
committees to abolish noisome cesspools and filthy pigsties, but 
a more prolific source of infection is found in every overcrowded 
bed-room. This evil is chiefly felt in the small towns and open 
villages. For this we have to thank the law of settlement. 
Noblemen and gentlemen who take interest in, and are very kind 
to, the villagers on their own estates, are often quite unmindful of 
the condition of those unfortunate poor who belong to their parish 
but do not live in it ; and many landlords, while very good and 
charitable towards their cottagers, are also very strict with them. 
Should a man be a drunkard, or a single woman become a 
mother, both are sent off to the next town. It may answer one 
purpose — of furnishing a warning to those who remain — but it is a 
very questionable means of reforming the guilty to transfer them 
to the very focus of temptation. One cannot blame a small 
capitalist, who has built a cottage out of his hard-earned savings, 
for requiring a good per-centage on his money, and thus asking 
a high rent for his cottage. A poor man single-handed cannot 
afford such a rent. It is not surprising that, to eke out his 
scanty means, he should introduce a lodger into his cottage, 
already over-crowded. Every estate should have cottages suffi- 
cient to accommodate the labourers employed on it ; but it is 
the unfortunate policy of the settlement law to offer inducements 
to the demolishing cottages where they are urgently required, 
and the congregating them where they are not. Even farmers 
are so short-sighted as to object to cottages on or near their farm, 
because they fear an augmentation of the poor-rate. But let 
the rate-payer consider how much of the labourer's strength he 
loses when the latter has to walk 3 miles to his daily work. His 
journey of 6 miles adds 2 hours to his day's work. Of course a 
man whose strength is thus taxed must be less able to perform 
his daily labour than one living on the spot, 
Garden allotments are common and have been found to be of 
much service to the poor. Their value, however, greatly de- 
pends on their extent and situation. If above a quarter of an 
acre, more time is required for attending to it than a labouring 
