Star.
London, England, 1828-08-02 00:00:00

SHROPSHIRE AND WELSH GIRLS.

In the strawberry season, hundreds rf women let
employed to carry that delicate fruit to m rket on rh,,;;,
heads; and their industry in performing this t
wonderful as their remunerotion is unworthy i;t
opulent 'classes who derive erijoyment horn !fro 1,.
hour. IThey consist, fur the most part, r f zihrop,ll,4
and W. 1.1) girls, who walk to London at nos „
droves, to perform this drudgery, just as the. bid] re,..
santry come to assist in the hay and corn Itarst•tc.
learnt that these women carry upon Vieir.heads f)a.ket,
of strawbe.ries or raspberries, welching from forty in
fifty pounds, and make two, tur os in the day. Iran, 1,1,„
worth to minket', a distance of thirtcen nai'es caco ..41;
three turns from Brentford; a distance r.f 'nine mile,:
and four turns from Hammersmith, a &smite
solesa For the most part they find sonic conveyote
back; but even then these industrious creaswes carry
loads from twenty-four to thirty miles a-day, brs,dn
walking back unladen some part of each turn ! Their
remuneration for this unparalleled slavery is from foss
to 9s. per day ; each turn from the distance ~; Ik„
worth being 4s. or 4.5. 6d.; and from that of Hammer.
smith __ls. or 2s. 3d. I'heir diet is coarse and simple,
their drink, tea and small beer; costing n.,t above Is,
or ls. 6d. and their back conveyance about 2s.or
25.6 d.; so that their net gains are about ss. per day,
which, in the strawberry season, of forty days, amounts
to 101. After this period the same. women find employ.
ment in gathering and marketing vegetables, at tower
wages, for other sixty days. netting about 54 more.
With this poor pittance they return to their native
country, and it adds either to their humble comforts, or
creates a small dowry towards a rustic estahliAment
for 1 fe. Can a more interesting picture be ,sawn ,f
virtuous exertions? Why have our poets f, filed to co-
lour and finish it ? More virtue never existed ir, their
favourite shepherdesses than in these Welsi. and Shrop.
shire girls! For beauty, symmetry, and compleum4
they are not inferior to the nymphs of AicaJta, and
'they far outvie the pallid specimens of Circasda I Their
morala.too are exemplary ; and they often perks, ni this
labour to support aged parents, or to ke, p their ova
children from the workhouse! In keen suffering, they
endure all that the imagination of a Poet could desire;
they live hard, they sleep on straw in hovels and barn:,
and they often burst an artery, or drop down dead
from the effect of heat and over-exertion! Yet, such it
the state of one portion of our female population, at
time when we are calling ourselves the most polished
nation on earth.—Mirror.

An Inquest was holden at St. Bartholomew's Ho
pital on the body of Elizabeth Mattocks, who, in the
absence of her mother, set her clothes on fire, and vas
so dreadfully burnt, that she expired in the above hose
pital.—Verdict, Accidental Death.
An Inquest was taken at the Wheat Sheaf, Old Pa%
eras-road, touching.the death of Sarah Foy, a4ed 2'2
years, an Irishwoman.—Mary Reardon stated, that the
deceased and a man named M'Donald, coh visited toge-
ther, and lodged in the same house as witness. Oa
Sunday morning McDonald came home drunk, and
laid on the bed till he recovered, when he stated that
he was going into the country to get harvest work.—
About seven o'clock in the evening he went avai,
without leaving deceased a farthing of money, and has
not since been beard. of. Witness, with the deceased
and her infant, all slept together on Sunday rigit,
when deceased complained of being unwell ; witness
gave her some jea ; she continued getting worse, and
died on Tuesday morning. No medical man not Rork
was sent tor.—The CORONER, in summing up, remarked
on the brutality of the man who had lett the deceas.rt
so destitute, and the gross barbarity of all the riffles to
the house, to leave a female to die without assi•teixe.—
Verdict, Died by the-visitation of Gorr.'