HIRING FAIRS IN ENGLAND. om 

The difficulty of getting women at the fairs for dairy work 
or for service in farmhouses is generally said to be an 
increasing one. ) 
In Northumberland and Durham the yearly system of 
hiring the ploughmen or hinds, who form the larger 
proportion of the farm servants, is generally similar to that 
in Scotland. The men are hired at fairs in March, the term 
of service beginning in May. MHalf-yearly hiringsare also 
held in some towns for unmarried men and youths, and also 
for women and girls for farmhouse work. | 
In the counties of Cumberland, North Lancashire, and 
Westmorland, where the majority of farm servants are un- 
married and live and board in the farmhouses, the engage- 
ments are chiefly half-yearly. It is customary for farm 
servants to attend several hirings, often situated in two or 
perhaps three of these counties, with the object of obtaining 
amusement and of meeting their friends as well as of getting 
situations. In Yorkshire yearly hirings and also some half- 
yearly ones are held at most of the principal market towns 
in the three Ridings at May Day and Martinmas. Lincoln- 
shire is the next county after those already referred to where 
the practice of hiring at fairs (or “statutes”) is the most 
common. Foremen and men in charge of animals are 
engaged by the year; single men are usually hired at fairs, 
but married men are generally engaged privately, often by 
advertisement. The married men live on the farms in 
cottages, which they always have free, with gardens. The 
unmarried men seldom lodge with the farmer, but generally 
with the foreman or “seedsman,’ who receives from his 
employer a weekly cash payment for the board of each, or 
else a smaller cash payment, and an allowance of pork, 
potatoes, beer or other food. Occasionally the men receive 
more cash and find their own food. Single men are nearly 
all hired at the fairs held in the first and second weeks in 
May, and some foremen and married men in charge of 
animals are hired at the Candlemas fairs, of which that held 
at Louth is the principal. In the neighbouring counties of 
Nottingham and Rutland very similar systems prevail, the 
engagements usually taking place at May, though there is 
