The Republican journal. [volume] (Belfast, Me.) 1829-current, 1874-11-05
The English Agricultural Poor.


London Correspondence of the New YorkGraphc
The tale of the revolving immortality
which is an enforced condition Of the life
Of many Of the English laborers has never
been told. When some years ago the
Chartist troub es aroused men Ike Charles
Kingsley to the necessity of bringing the
condition Of the poor prominently before
the public in hopes to arouse whatever OF
humanity there was in capitalists and the
landed gentry, arstocratic England affect
ed astonishment at the pictures of life dis
closed, and then-let the poor 60 on as
they have always done in England, living
on subsistence wages which too fire.
quently afford not even subsistence. Such
books as "Alton Locke are supposed to
have had an effect in attracting attention
to a very dark side of civilized life, but
what have they done to Tighten it? AL
most nothing A recent letter to the Times,
signed by Henry Fawcett, shows the utter
hardness and blindness of the farmers
who, because the years harvest has been
abundant, have reduced the wages of farm
Iaborers from the pittance of twelve shil-
Iings week to eleven shillings, the ex-
cuse being that bread will be cheaper; and
so the laborers' hard earnings must 90 to
swell the more than ordinarily large in
comes Of the farmers The hardest being
on Gods earth is that same English farm
er; himself and his are all he cares for,
and he will grind the faces Of the poor
with a reCkleSsless of all human consid-
erations almost impossible to conceive.
And the result is such as is shocking to
human nature Recent Investigations in
the hop-growing district by Farnham--
and this is a sottcned picture-show a
state of morals which the decorous Times
will never put before the public in all its
revolving forms. Hop-picking is health
tul sort OF work, and. in the proper sea-
son, attracts men and women from towns
from tailoring on starvation wages and
sewing where it is difficult to tell which is
less material the sewing-woman or her
shadow thrown on the floor by a sputter-
ing tall0W candle-to the country How
they live there may be seen by any one
who cares to read the facts. Annually
three or tour thousand choppers 90 out
to the laruham district, bringing their
babies and older children of both sexes
with them-the latter 10 pick and the
former to sprawl about and take care of
n
After work is over these people are penned
in great barns which at night are packed
with men, women and children, who cook
and eat their Slight meals therein-when
they cook amy thing, tor generally their
only food is bread and cheese-and then
tall asleep-those who choose to do so.
When the moonlight is shining down
upon the fields these barns become the
scenes Of orgies which it would require
the pen Of an old debauched Roman poet
to describe This Is not the case III all
places for in some Of these barns only
married people and children are allowed
but the difference this makes is not always
very perceptible Here children grow
Injured to vice as well as poverty, and are
corrupted before they are even mature.
What effect this will have on English
morals is q question the statesmen will
soon have to think about very seriously.
At present the life led at the hop -pckings
is so revolving that the pen refuses to
describe it,