The Sun.
London, England, 1850-10-26 00:00:00

EVEN ING, OCTOBER 26, 1850.

within a moderate distance of a market town is a

somewhat lucrative privilege, as thither he can con-
vey and dispose of the produce of his cow, and the
calf which she bears once a year, which together
may yield him au annual sum of from 121. to ]5l.
Such of the hinds as do not choose to keep a cow are
allowed ss. a week in lieu of the privilege they thus
forego. In addition to the cow, the bind is allowed
31. a year for what is called the "deaf stint," that is
for waiving his right to grass for another cow, to which
he is entitled by the custom of the county. He has also
from 800 to 1,000 yards of ground allotted to hint,
on which to plant potatoes, together with a sufficient
quantity of manure; his coals are likewise led him
and his corn ground free of charge ; and living in
the midst of the great coal mines of Northumberland,
he can buy the best coals so low as from 3s. 8 i. to 4-.
a ton. He has, besides, the privilege of keeping n
pig on the farm, or eight stones of pork in lieu al-
lowed hitn in the year. But this is not all. There
is always an abundance of work on a farm for the
wife and growing sons and daughters of the hind, by
which they can earn Is. 61 a day during harvest,
81. in winter, and 10d. during the remainder of the
year. We were shown an account by which it
appeared that the wife and two boys cf a la-
bourer earned 1/. 11s. in a fortnight ; another
with three boys, 1/. His. in the same time; another,
with one son, 1/.45. ; and this was over and above the
ss. a week which each man received in lieu of a cow
that he did not keep, and an additional boll of wheat
or two in the year, which are given to the wives or
daughters of some of the labourers for taking care of
the poultry on the farm. Such is an unexaggerated
account of the material provision made for the wants
of the agricultural labourer and his family in North-
umberland; and though, for the most part, the de-
scription applies to one particular farm which came
under our observation, and that more by chance than
by choice, it will, on the whole, be found to be appli-
cable, mutatis mutandis, to the condition of the same
class throughout the county.
Reference has been made to the wages which the
women are in the habit of earning on the farm ; and
this leads to a passing consideration of a custom
peculiar to Northumberland and some others of the
northern counties. This is called " bondage work,"
which has been misunderstood by most strangers,
and much misrepresented by others. Cobbett, in a
flying visit be once. paid to that county, heard, as a
matter of course, of the bondage work which prevails
among the agricultural population there, and taking
fire at the word " bondage" he went per saltum, as
was his habit, to the conclusion that it oppressed and
ground down the poor, and accordingly vented the
vials of his rage and indignation upon it. But for
once he was far out of his reckoning. The sum and
substance of the bondage system is this. There are
many descriptions of labour necessarily incident to
the cultivation of a farm, of a nature so comparatively
light that most of them, the " mint and cummin" as

it were of the concern, 'as to be beneath the appli-
cation of able-bodied male labour, which is
consumed on weightier and more important
niatters ; and in order to the performance of these
lighter kinds of hand labour the aid of females has
immemorially been had recourse to. Remote as most
of the farms are from towns and villages, where fee
males might be had to do this sort of work, the far-
mer bas ever been driven to enlist in its performance
all the female hands about his own homestead; and
hence it has been, from time beyond the memory of
man, the indispensable custom for the farmer, on en-
gaging a hind, to stipulate that be shall find a female
throughout the year to do the work in question at the
wages already referred to, and which is called in
common parlance "bondage work," probably because
the hind is in a manner bound to make provision for
its performance. So far, however, from looking upon
this custom in the nature of a hardship, the agricul-
tural labourers, and especially their wives and
daughters, whom it chiefly concerns, embrace it with
pleasure and satisfaction, inasmuch as its emoluments,
paid in hard cash, enable them to grace their substan-
tial though plain fare occasionally with a few comforts
and luxuries otherwise unattainable, and to gratify
that amiable passion for dress, which sways the female
breast in every condition of life.
Formerly, as has been stated, the most pinching
inconvenience suffered by the hinds was i
their being
lodged with their families, almost invariably, n cot-
tages, each containing only a single apartment, with a
few necessary offices. In a soil and atmosphere so
ungenial it could scarcely be expected that the innate
delicacies and moralities of life could be maintained.
Nor was this the only evil resulting from such a
state of things. When contagious diseases lighted
upon any of those little rural communities the
consequent mortality was greatly aggravated
among families compelled to herd together in
one Smsll room. IN ith a most culpable negli-
gence, too, the landowner was often wont to
suff'r the labourers cottages to fall into decay ;
hence they were often found to be cold, damp, and
comfortless. But a great change for the better has,
within the last ten years, taken place in this respect.
The benevolent mind of the Rev. Dr. Gilly, a pre-
bendsry of Durhem, was attracted some few years
ago to the state of the dwellings of the peasantry in
the country ; he wrote and published a touching ap•
peal to the landed gentry on their behalf; public, tit-
tendon was thus directed to the subject, aid the re-
sult happily has been, that the old cramped and com-
fortless thatched cottages in which the labourers were
formerly housed are rapidly disappearing, and
being supplanted by a neat, substantial, and
commodious order of dwellings in most parts of
the county. e would especially refer to the ex-
amples sat in this respect, and also in providing schools
for the children of the labourers by the Duke of Port-

land, the Duke of Northumberland, Earl Grey, the I
present Earl of Carlisle, Mr. Cresswell Baker, of
Cresswell, and Mr. Lawson, of Longhurat, whose I
estates lie contiguous in that county. Wherever new
cottages are being built in the hamlets or on the
farmsteads, care is now invariably taken to provide
each family, at least, with two apartments, in addition
to the necessary offices. In some instances the exer-
tions made by the landowner in this direction are
shared, if not anticipated, by the tenant-farmer him-
self. This has been done, fur instance, by the Messrs.
Jobling on their farm at Butterwell, belonging to
the Duke of Portland, who have provided each of
their hinds with two apartments, who had for-
merly on:y one. Speaking of the Duke of
Portland we cannot retrain from referring to the
amiable reputation his Lordship has earned in
Northumberland for his uniformly kind and consi-
derate deportment both towards the tsearitry and the
poor (.0 his fine estate there. Though he certainly
had neither act nor part in carrying the measure of
free trade, his Lordship has since spontaneously
shown a disposition to undergo the most generous
sucrifi es in his dealings with his tenantry, with a
view to eaFe the pressure of that transition state to
which the agricultural interest has Is en subjected by
a fundamental charge of the laws affecting it. But
his Lordship's considerate generosity towards his
tenant-farmers, howe%er, dues not date so recently as
the inauguration of tree trade, but was invariably
extended towards them in those seasons of depression
and suffering wirh which they were from time to
time afflicted under a former order of things. His
Lordship, in a word,' is en interesting example of
" a fine old English gentleman ;" and in Mr. Sample,
his resident local agent, a man of kind and unassum-
ing manners, his Lordship possesses a representative
who carries out his instructions with discretion and
firmness, tempered with urbanity.