The Express.
London, England, 1863-10-06 00:00:00

BKZTANNLA.

Tun Swum PIDF.BTIIIHWELL Mn. Tacnaid.—THß
GREAT GHOST EFFECT.—Singtag by Mr. Randall. Mr. Parker.
and Mme. Plena.—And LADY ADDUCTS ISIVRET. Nam%
Pd) nuide. Cranford, and Parry Moos Mlles and Downing.

1101 WATIA AT WIDOW 1111.1DOL
Two Day —Wershmi, 110 Mamas. Bh. Ma
TO4IOIIOW —Yards& 9h Us.. A2IIOOIO.

LONDON, TUESDAY, OCTOBER 6.

WRITERS and speakers at the autumn public
meetings go on talking, as for several years past,
of " drawing attention to " the condition of
Labourers' Cottages. But after the disclosures which
have been made by a series of Sanitary Inspectors,
in many agricultural counties, capped by the reports
of Mr. SAMUEL CLARXE of the condition of Norfolk
labourers' dwellings, it can hardly be inattention
that has first to be combatted. Well as agriculture
has prospered for the seventeen years since its libe-
ration, and much as we hear of the improving in-
telligence and the rising wages of the farm servant,
it is still true that he comes home from his work
to discomfort, damp, and stench, that the rotting
thatch under which he sleeps drops dirt and in-
sects upon him as he lies, and that he sees his
young children corrupted before his eyes by the
indecency of habits which, in his hovel, he cannot
prevent. All this is well known. It is neither
unnoticed nor forgotten. There is something
more wanted than drawing attention to the evil.
If inattention is not the obstacle to a complete
reform—what •is f What are the points which
in the speeches of the last week or two
seem to be the essentials of the case f
All these speakers are agreed that the Law of
Settlement is mainly answerable for the deficiency
of labourers' dwellings, by having offered an induce-
ment to separate the labourer's place of residence
from his place of work. Everybody praises the
relaxations which have already taken place in the
law ; and some hope confidently, and some spoon-
late timidly about its total abrogation before long.
To repeal it would no doubt be a bold step—a
passing over from one system of industry to
another ; but if it is still a question whether the
new freedom could work more disastrously than
the old feudal tie or bond, the matter will soon
be beyond the range of choice. If the rural
labourer is not retrieved by strenuous exertions
under the remaining Law of Settlement, the law
will have to give way to the necessities of the
labourer first, and his employer after him.

It is noticeable that speakers who say just the
same things about the Settlement Law make oppo.
site statements about the immediate causes of the
mischief. While one is eloquent on the impolicy
of putting the peasantry into hovels, like pig-
stym, far away from their occupation, so that
they have not vigour and energy to do their work
properly, another complains that them are not
worthy tenants for such good cottages as there are.
Lord WAS/LNG/UM says he has himself built good
cottages for which he cannot find tenants qualified
to work on his land. Here is a vicious circle
which the landed interest must get out of, and
certainly can get out of whenever it choose..
Hem, on the one hand, are group, of miserable
clowns, feeble in body from nnrefreshing sleep, in
prepared food, insufficient clothing, and long walks
to and from their work. These, it is said, would
not only spoil a good dwelling if they were put
into it, but cannot earn such wages as would pay
the rent. Here, on the other hand, are cottages
standing empty, because tenants who earn good
wages by superior work do not offer, and cannot be
found. The aria wort° this is, that Lord WiLI3INGBAX'S
neighbourhood most be a miserably degraded one.
Whichever way we turn in the rural districts,
where any sort of justice is done to agriculture,
we hear of, and witness for ourselves, the striking
and steady improvement of the peasantry, under
the development of the arts of tillage. Wage. are
still strangely unequal—being fifteen or sixteen
shillings in one county for the same work that ob-
tains seven or eight in another; but that even in
the most backward districts there has been some
rise of wages, and that on the whole the labourers
of the new generation are brighter and more
effectively industrious than their fathers, is one of
the great topics of congratulation of the day.
Wherever the steam-engine has gone to work
in the fields, the people round teem to have
wakened up as from a dream ; and to a multi-
tude of our rural labourers the event has
been as an entrance upon a new life.
Are these people, thus become men instead of
slow-going machines, to be still housed like brutes,
as they were when they could earn only the pay
of half-idiots f Lord Warensansx will not have
to wait long for worthy tenants of good cottages
when the steam-cultivator has fairly got into use
in his parish and beyond it. As it is, the reina
is obvious that his work is done, or he would
not go on farming, or letting his farms. Those
who do the work ought to have the decent home
which it should naturally earn ; and the low,
ricketty, stupid, lazy clowns whom be describes as
herding together in vile rookeries, can hardly be
the farm servants concerned. in the question of
good lodging for the local labour. If the work
gets done, the workers have a claim to such treat-
ment as will keep up their capacity. In no case
can there be any justification for providing
insufficient dwellings or none. The safest
course, in regard to outward gain as
well as inward repose, is to provide the dwell-
ings at all events, and then do the bed
that offers for training good tenants for they.
This is the course which will secure the highest
profits from the farm henceforth, and the lowest
figure of poor-rate hereafter. A high quality of
labour on the soil and a low level of pauperism
will much more than pay for any cost of cottage-
building, in any county in England. If such is
the promise on the one hand, end if, on the
other, the doubt will be settled, as we are assured,
by an inevitable scarcity of rural labour before
long, the ease ought to need no further urging on
the attention of country gentlemen. If their only
chance of not being left to plough their own fields
and tend their own stock is engaging the services
and goodwill of their present labourers by placing
comfort and advancement within their reach, they
might be glad to spend money on cottages as they