Suggestions for its Improvement. 19 
contented peasantry around them, and by feeling that in attend- 
ing to the comfort and well-being of their people, they have 
taken the most effectual means for promoting their own. 
In certain counties the labourers, instead of being provided 
with cottages conveniently situated with respect to the farm on 
which they work, are congregated in villages of considerable 
size. This is owing to the demolition of cottages, and the prac- 
tice of clearing parishes and estates, which has been adopted of 
late years, with a view to lessen the amount of the poor's rate. 
Where this has been done, the labourers, instead of living under 
and being employed directly by the farmer, become the servants 
of a gangsman or undertaker, who bargains with the farmer for 
the work to be executed, and then hires a gang of people to do it. 
He of course makes the best bargain he can with the farmer, and 
pays as little as he can to the people, who are thus excluded from 
all intercourse with their natural superiors, and placed entirely at 
the mercy of a hard and grasping schemer. 
Out of these circumstances has, moreover, in a great measure 
arisen the now prevalent practice of employing females in the 
rougher descriptions of field-labour. The gangsman, having un- 
dertaken for the performance of certain work, hires the cheapest 
labour that can be obtained; and as women work for less wages 
than men, he engages as many of them as possible, and in such 
cases it is not uncommon to see more women and girls at work in 
a field than there are men. It may be that field-labour is not 
generally injurious to the health of females, although there is 
much conflicting evidence upon this point ; but no one can doubt 
its injurious effects upon their manners and morals, or that it is 
unfeminine, and tends to put them out of their proper position in 
society. The Reports of the Commissioners appointed in 1842 
to inquire into employment of women and children in the agri- 
cultural districts, present important evidence on these points, and 
to them the reader is referred for further information on the 
subject. 
But whether the employment of females in common field- 
labour be open to much or to little objection, there are unques- 
tionably other employments better suited to their sex and circum- 
stances. Independently of household work, and matters strictly 
appertaining to the female department of cottage economy ; and 
of garden-vvork, and the lighter descriptions of agricultural labour 
at certain seasons, which are not open to the objections that 
attach to habitual field-labour at all seasons, as now practised in 
the instances above adverted to — independently of these, the 
females in the rural districts might find abundance of suitable 
employment in the management of the flax-crop in its different 
stages, if the growth of flax were more attended to in this 
c 2 
