The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1872-11-23 00:00:00

111111•11
I woraillidion.
goes belpsoomee
be; mg from e
f.,11111=1.
airsi—a • .
felehliAm

„Anal* If elaborate posilimell say amount
of lahrillgence b.. es head outer or bead fans', as the
ease may be: and fru..s that lobe miastaat or under-ballid,
sad bleary bailiff. As • bailiff he has every opportunity to
lama the worklag of • farm, and Is otten placed in entire
charge of • farm et • &stenos from his employer,. residence.
In time he establishes a reputation as • practical man, and
being In receipt of good wages, with very little expenditure,
saves some mow. Me has now little difilealty in obtain-
ing the promise of a farm, sod with this he an readily tete
op money. With average care be is • made man. Others
rim from petty trading, petty dealing In pigs and calves,
till they save sufficient to rent a email farm, and make that
the basis of larger dealing operations. I question very much
whether a clerk in a firm would not find it much more
lift
cult, as requiring larger capital, to raise himself to • level
with his employer than an agricultural labourer does to the
level of a farmer.
Many labourers now wander far and wide as navvies, &c.
ant perhape when these return home, se most of them de,
to agricultural labour, they are the most useful and in-
telligent of their class, from a readiness they posse a to turn
their hand to anything. I know one at this moment who
makes a large actil:lon to his ordinary wages by brewing for
the snail; inns, and very good liquor he brew., too. They
pick up a large amount of practical knowledge.
The agricultural women are certainly not handsome ,
know no peasantry no entirely uninviting. Occasionally
there is a girl whose nut brown complexion and sloe black
eyes aro pretty, hut their features are very rarely good, and
they get plain quickly, so soon as the first flush of youth is
past. Many have really good hair in abundance, glossy and
rich, perhaps from Its expnaure to the flesh air. But on
Sundays they plaster it with strong-smelling pomade and
hair oil, which scents the air for yards most unpleasantly.
As • rule, It may safely be laid down that the agricultural
women are moral, far more so than those of the town.
Rough and rude jokes and language are, Indeed, too cons-
mon ; but that is all. No evil comes of it. The fairs are
tae chief cause of Immorality. Many an honest, hard-work-
ing servant girl owes her tutu to these fatal mops and fairs,
when liquor to which she is unacuatomed overcomes her.
Yet it memo cruel to take from them the one day or two of
the year on which they can enjoy themselves fairly in their
own fashion. The spread of friendly societies, patronized
by the gentry and clergy, with their annual festivities, is a
remedy which is gradually supplying them with safer, and
yet congenial, amusement. In what may be termed lesser
morals I cannot accord either them or the men this same
praise. They are too ungrateful for the many great
benefits which are bountifully supplied them—the brandy,
the soup, and fresh meat readily extended without sthstfrom
the farmer's home in skimse to the °Mine are too quickly
forgotten. They who were moat benefited are often the first
to most loudly complain and to backbite. Never once in all
My observation have I heard a labouring man or woman
make a grateful remark ; and yet I MR confidently say that
there is no class of persons in England who receive so many
attentions and benefits from their superiors as the agrtsul-
tonal labourers. Stories are rife of their even refusing is work
at disastrous tires because beer was not immediately forth-
coming. I trust this is not true : but it is too much in cha-
racter. No term is too strong in condemnation for those per-
sons who endeavour to arouse an agitation among a class of
people so shortsighted and so neatly to turn against their
own benefactors atd their own interest. I am credibly in-
formed that one of these agitator., immediately after the
Bishop of Glouce•ter's unfortunate but harmlessly intended
speech at the Gloucester Agricultural Society'. dirmar—one
of these agitators mounted a platform at a village meeting
and in plain language incited and advised the labourers to
deck the farmers ! The agricultural women either go out
to field work or become indoor servants. In harvest they
hay-make— chiefly light work, as raking; and reap, whirh
Is much harder labour, but then, while reaping, they work
their own time, as it is done by the piece. Significantly
enough, they make longer hours while reaping. They are
notoriously late to arrive, and eager to return home on
the hayfield. The children help both in haymaking and
reaping. in spring and autumn they hoe and do other piece-
work. On pasture farms they beat clots or pick up stones
out of the way of the mowers' scythes. Occasionally, hut
rarely now, they milk. In winter they wear gaiters, which
give the ankles a meat ungainly appearance. Thoae who
go out to service get very low wages at first from their ex-
treme awkwardnefs, but generally quickly rise. As dairy-
maids they get very good wages Indeed. Dairymaid, are
scarce and valuable. A dairymaid who can It trusted to
take charge of a dairy will sometimes get i',2o sides her
board (liberal) and &midi perquisite.. Them often save
money, marry bailiffs, and help their husbands to start a
farm.
In the education provided for children Wiltshire com-
pares favourably with other counties. long before the
passing of the recent Act in reference It olu,ation the
clergy had established schools in almost every parish, and
their exertions have enabled the greater number of places
to come up to the standard required by the Act, without
the asabitance of a School Board.. The great difficulty is
the distance children have to walk to school, from the sparse-
nem of population and the number of outlying hamleta
This difficulty is felt equally by the farmers, who, in the
majority of cases, find themselves situated far from a good
school. In only one place has anything like a cry for
education arisen, and that is on the extreme northern edge
of the county. The Vice•Chatrufan of the Swindon
Chamber of Agriculture recently stated that only one-half of
the entire population of Inglesham ceuld read and write.
It subeequently appeared that the parish of inglesham was
very sparsely populated, and that a variety of eireumstances
had prevented vigorous efforts being made. The children
however, could attend Beheads in adjoining parishes, no
farther than two mil., a distance which they frequently
walk in other parts of the country.
TM no who are so ready to ca3t every blame upon the
fanner, and to represent him es eating up the earnings of h. e
men and enriching Monett with their ill-paid labour, should
rem emier that larniing, as a rule, is carriei on with • large
amount of borrowed capital. In these days, when £0 an
acre has been expended in growing roota for shcep, when
the slightest derangement of calculation in the price of
wool, meat, or corn, or the lose of scrap seriously interferer
with a fair return for capital inveeted, the farmer hoe to
sail extremely close to the win I, and only a little more would
Cu,,! C.V. ebbing. It was only r,,cently that the
c ,shier of tlme :-rifivipal bank of no agricultural c may, after
an unpmsperotno year, declared that such another season
would make almost every farmer Insolvent. l'iuler these
circumstances it JA really to be wor.dered at that they have
done as much as they have for the labourer in the last tow
years, finding him with better cottages, better wages, better
education, and affording him better opportunities of rising in
the elm:tat scale.—l am, &e., RICHARD JEFFERIES,
Coate-farm, Swindon, Nov. It

The annexed, in reply to the above, appeared in The
Times of Monday :
Having read the letter signed "Richard Jefferiee," In The
Times of rhursd ay, I think some of your readers, like myself,
will think it too one-sided.
Although much that he says may be true, to a certain ex-
tent, the labourer is not such a bad minager as Mr. Jefferies
would have us believe. By forge of circumstances he cannot
be • good manager. Mr. Jefferies says Me wages are len.,
115 12a., and, if a milker, las. a week, as he has to work on
Sundays.
Now, to talk of buying butchers' meat must be alarm out
of his money ; and, if he could, in most villages he would
only he able to obtain It once a week, as there is nobody sells
it only on Saterdaye, It is well known that the "smallest
piece" of bacon boiled with cabbage or any other vegetable
will give it a "flavour" and make it greasy, but not sufficently
to bring on a bilious attack ; consequently, it appears to go
further than any other meat ; so on that score it tiles not
matter much as they cannot buy sufficient to do either good
or harm. As for his gormaudizing, as described, it makes him
an object of pity more than of covilemnation. 1 have known
some formers to go to their root dinners and "do likewise,"
and also to be capable of puttiug an equal amount of beer
out of eight.
As regards dress, farmers, their wives, and their daugh-
ters, like everybody else, dress better than formerly ; al-
though foolish, perhaps, why should not tim labourer, if he
pleas 5? As a role, the cleaner tied boil., dressed the la.
! Witmer, the cleaner and better arranged is his house, and the !
more intelligent and respectable are the man, his wife. and !
family. The better made the garment. the better it looks;
a cheap material in the fashion always looks better than an
es pensive old-fashioned article; so to an extent fashion in
economy. I think their refusal to buy remnants is not
general, only in Mr. Jefferies' neighbourhood.
I am glad to hear that it would be Impolsible to fled a
"single" had cottage on any large estate, also that the allot-
ment system has been found very beneficial. This is a great
boon, but why should they be made to pay for their small
allotments double the price a farmer pays per acre? Mr.
Jetteries says :
" The extra produce above that which supplies the table
and pays the rent is easily disposed of In the next town, and
places many additional comforts In the labourer's reach; the
refuse goes to help to keep and fatten the pig, which brings
In profit enough to pay the rent of the cottage."
Fancy • labourer with an allotment of one acre at £4 (an
allotment is usually one rood at £1) having enough produce
for his own house, enough to sell to pay the rent, and enough
to sell to place "many additional comforts" within his
reach, and the refuse to help to support and fatten a pig,
which brings him proat enough to pay the rent of the cot-
lade! In my humble opinion it must be a wonderful allot-
ment and a "wonderful pig."
lithe semi-barbarian is capable of doing all thin, what can
the enlightened farmer do on only 100 acres, at rents at half
the allotment ?Rice per acre?
I may add I have five roods of land I gave £lOO for (free-
kohl) on which last year I grew four quarters one bushel of
terley, which I sold for ZS Os., and 40 bushels of potatoes,
which I sold for £5, making the produce £l3 211.; the land
is of the poorest possible soil, and there were a great many
bad potatoes. In conclusion, my opinion is, if land can be
made to produce £lO an acre, at the rents farmers are pay-
big they Can Alford to pay their labourers more standing
wages than these quoted by Mr. Jefferlea, which are more
than 25 per cent, per man less than it costs per horse, and
I think your majors most think that a man ought to be of
the same value, if not morn—l am, etc., A. B.
November 16.