662 The Farm Labourers of England and Wales. 
in different counties, but also in the several parishes of the same 
district, and even on the farms of the same parish, especially 
when some farms are distant from a village. For ordinary 
labourers the hours are as short as from 7 a.m. till 5 P.M., and 
as long as from 6 a.m. till 6 P.M. in summer, while they are 
usually from light till dark, or from 7 a.m. till 5 p.m., in winter. 
Formerly the hours in summer were nearly everywhere from 
6 a.m. till 6 P.M. ; but they have been shortened in most counties, 
and are now more commonly from 6 A.M. to 5.30 p.m., 6.30 a.m. 
to 6 P.M., or 6.30 a.m. to 5.30 p.m. They are longest, as a rule, 
in the North and the Midlands, where wages are highest. As 
to meal times, there is always an hour for dinner, and men who 
go to work at 6 a.m. or 6.30 a.m. usually have half an hour 
for breakfast, while those who do not begin till 7 A.M. have no 
right to any time but an hour for dinner, although pretty gene- 
rally they have got into the habit of taking at least a quarter of 
an hour for lunch. Thus meal times occupy 1£ to 1^ hour usually, 
and sometimes longer, and the actual working times of day 
labourers in summer are nominally from 8f to 104 hours a day. 
But when a man is working at some distance from the home- 
stead he usually begins to get ready for going home about half 
an hour before the fixed time for leaving the farm. In winter 
the day labourer’s actual working time may be reckoned as 
from 8-g- to 9 hours. 
The hours of horsemen and stockmen vary more widely 
than those of day labourers, while those of shepherds may be 
said to be unfixed. In many counties where the horsemen 
used to be with their horses at 4 a.m. they are now an hour 
later, and there is as wide a range as from 4 a.m. to 6 a.m. in 
different parts of the country. As to the evening limit, it varies 
greatly with the custom of feeding. Where horses are turned 
out into the yards for the night, or into the fields or pastures in 
summer, the horsemen go home as early as the day labourers, 
and sometimes earlier, as, for instance, when they have turned 
the horses into the fields, or provided them with green stuff for 
the night. But where it is the custom to keep the horses in 
the stables at night, the men are usually with them till 6 P.M. or 
later, and again for a short time to rack-up or “ supper-up ” at 
7 p.m. or 8 P.M. Thus, the working hours of horsemen in many 
counties may be said to extend over the whole period of the day, 
from their rising very early in the morning until bed-time, 
with intervals for meals. A large portion of the time is occu- 
pied with the light work of feeding the horses, and it is the 
restriction upon liberty which is chiefly objected to. This 
restraint might be lessened materially, as it is in some cases, 
