90 
Farm Labourers, their Friendly Socielic.i, 
tlieir independence by habits of self-reliance, and making good 
use of the opportunities afforded them. 
With these remarks, we shall describe the farm labourer as he 
is in lairly wage-paid districts, and see what may be done in 
order to render the bearing of the Poor Law conducive to 
provident habits instead of being subversive of them. VVe shall, 
then, examine one or two of his benefit societies, Avhether 
formed and managed for him or by laim ; and it will be our 
duty again to urge the advantages which a system * of in- 
surances under Government supervision would place within his 
disposal. 
Unless the education f of the farm labourer is commenced 
early, and diligently prosecuted in the fields, he will not learn it 
well. It is, therefore, something more than a mere coincidence 
that necessity to help in earning his living enforces this law 
in nineteen families out of twenty. For this purpose the young 
labourer is taken from school as soon as he can earn 4rf. or 6c?. 
a day on the farm. He forgets all he has learned at school 
as fast as other boys do, and has few opportunities of doing 
more than just to regain what he was taught before ten years of 
age. As my specimen grows bigger, he is worth more money. 
He leaves home, and goes into service as a " mate," or lad, to 
help the waggoner, whose wife takes care of his clothes. He is 
speedily ambitious of all the distinctions of early manhood, and 
after passing through the half-dozen violent attachments which 
the matrons of Grumbleton denominate calf-love, he is seen 
some fine morning, before he is two-and-twenty, on his way from 
church with his bride, who is only seventeen. There is reason 
to hope that the blessings which the friends of the happy couple 
bestow upon them — and they can give them nothing more — will 
not be in vain, for they Avill have occasion for everything of the 
kind before long. If they cannot be accommodated under the 
roof of their parents, and wonderful are the contrivances made 
with this object in view, they locate themselves in a couple of 
rooms ready furnished in a noisy row of cottages. They hire 
the furniture of the broker, and, for a time, all goes on merrily. 
Work is plentiful. She is a managing girl, he is a hard-working 
lad ; and by the time there are a couple of children, they are in 
a cottage. One thing is a trouble, and that is the broker's bill. 
As that wary dealer saw opportunity, he would sell them som(i 
useful article of furniture which they had hitherto rented. 
Thus, by slow degrees, the bed they sleep on, the table, the 
* See pamphlet, " Friendly Societies versus Beerhouse Clubs," by the -writer, 
reprinted in Appendix to "The Report of the Commission in Agriculture," p. 98, 
art. 228. Also published by Ridgway, Piccadilly. 
t See " Life of a Farm Labourer," ' Coruhill Magazine,' 18G4, by the writer. 
