672 The Farm Labourers of England and Wales. 
badly fitted that a good draught can enter the rooms, in spite of 
the efforts of the inmates to exclude fresh air. Seeing that few 
middle-class houses are provided with any other means of venti- 
lation than windows, chimneys, and doorways, it is not surprising 
to find no other means of the kind in cottages. Moreover, with 
the existing ignorance of sanitation prevalent among the working 
classes, the best of ventilators, if provided, would certainly be 
stopped up in the great majority of instances. 
As to drainage, it has been greatly improved in most large 
villages. Fortunately, the water-closet system is not common 
in rural districts, though there is usually a drain for surface and 
slop water in a village. The adoption of the earth-closet system, 
with wise and benevolent despotism, is insisted upon by the 
owners of some large estates, as on that of the Duke of Bedford, 
for instance. I was agreeably surprised to find the system in 
use in several villages in different parts of the country, and to 
learn that it was carried out by the cottagers in a satisfactory 
manner. 
The most widely prevalent defect in rural sanitation is an 
insufficient or impure water supply. This is sometimes due to 
soil or situation, but more often to indisposition on the part of 
landowners or that of local authorities to incur the expenditure 
necessary in providing a better supply. 
In nearly all districts the tenure of cottages is of three 
different kinds — direct hiring from the landlords, indirect hiring 
through the farmers, and ownership. Very few cottages, how- 
ever, are owned by the occupiers, except in some of the open 
villages, or where they have been built on the waste of a manor, 
and the tenants pay a nominal quit-rent or none at all, through 
the claim for it having been somehow allowed to lapse. 
In most districts cottages on farms are let, or, as is more 
common, provided rent free by the farmers, while in the villages 
they are let by the large landowner's dii’ectly, or by speculative 
builders and other investors. The letting varies from a weekly one, 
as far as rent-collection is concerned, to a yearly one, and the notice 
to quit varies from a month to six months, or even a year ; or, at 
any rate, where a notice is nominally less than a month, it takes 
at least so long to force a tenant to quit by legal process. Much 
fault is found with the plan of allowing farmers to have the 
letting of cottages owned by their landlords, and where they are 
in villages there is something to be said against it. But it 
would be unfair to farmers to prevent them from reserving 
cottages on their farms, or built close by for their accommoda- 
tion, for the men who work for them, and turning out men who 
leave their service. Besides, there is another consideration. 
