The morning star and Catholic messenger. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1868-1881, 1874-10-11
Serfdom in England.

We found the following in a recent num-
Der of the New Orleans Christian 4Gt0cate
It was among the selected matter, but no
credit was given to the Journal from which
it was copied
The "hind" or serf of the English soil
has hitherto been the very dullest, most
stolid, ignorant and torpid of all specimens
of human nature but at last he has been
aroused to self-assertion. The great strike
of two years ago began in "England's gar
dep," the fairest and richest of the English
shires, where, "as you ride along the ever,
famous highway between Coventry and
Warwick, abundance seems written all
over the fecund earth, laboring under it's
lavish crops, and adorned by its beautiful
Indigenous and oaken avenues" But in
the midst of all this plenty the peasant is
half starved in the most warm, cozy of
English landscapes he is half frozen ;
amidst universal growth and prosperity
he alone grows not, but remains stunted
amidst an arid existence, cut Oft apparently
from all prospect of either material or
moral advancement. The four
great evils under which the English pea
SAINTS in every shire have long been op
pressed are lack of good food, lack of
healthfnl and decent habitation, lack Of
adequate wages, and lack of education. A
moments consideration of actual hSures
indicates the inadequacy of wages. In the
southern shires, such as Dorset, Hamp
shire, Devon aud Somerset, the wages of
the peasant range from niue to twelve shil-
lipgs q week ($2 25 to $3). In the eastern
shires, such as Cambridge, Suffolk, Essex
and Huntingdon, they range from twelve
to fourteen or fifteen shllings tS3 to 40
or $375). The recent great clock OUT in
eastern England was caused by the demand
of the peasants for fourteen instead OF
thirteen shilings. In the northern shires
York Lincoln, Cumberland, Westmore
land, Durham-the wages range fsOm four
teen shiliings to one pound (S3 SO to $50.
Thus the very highest wages in that part
of the country where farm labor is most
stalwart and most healthy consists of sixty
to seventy five cents day, while in the
great fruit, dairy and garden produce
countries the hind has to subsist as he may
on forty or fifty cents day. The period
of daily work averages about twelve hours,
though at certain seasons this widens to
fourteen and fifteen hours Be-
sides their regular wages the peasants are
provided, either by the great landlord
directly or by the tenant farmer, with
what are very picturesquely called "cot
tages" We have pleasantly romantic idea
of the English rural cottage Its matched
and moss hung roof, it's clambering wood
bine and boneysuckle, it's venerable age
it's cozy nesting among the rich, dark
green foliage, CRAFTY the eye and fascinate
the fancy. The reality is sad and sug
gestiye contradiction to all this. Spital
fields and Seven Dials, the New Road aud
Smithfield, slacas of overcrowded London,
are not more reekipg with disease or with
moral pestiiences than tho wretched ham
lets, in the midst of exquisite landscape,
of the English minds. The peasant has
been doomed not only to ignorance him
SELF bat to see his children grow up in an
ignorance as dense and hopeless as bis
own. The squire and farmer have been in
the habit of regarding education as applied
ut least to peasants, as an lnterloper,
conspirator and nuisance. When year
or two ago, the new system of national
education WAS established, by which each
locality was permitted TO elect school
board or not, as it chose, in the farming
districts school boards were almost invAri-
ably voted down by large majorities and
TO-DAY the boon of universal and free edu
cation, made permissive by Parliament, is
rejected in those places where the rural
maRnates and the established clergy pos
sess the dominant iuhGences. cit is i'm
possible" says an English writer, 'to exc
aggerate the ignorance in which the pea
SAINTS live and move and have their being.
As they work in the field, the external
world has some hold upon them through
the medium of their senses but TO all the
higher exercises of intellect they are perfect
strangers. You cannot add ress them with
out being at once painfully struck with
the intellectual darkness which enshrouds
them. There is in general neither specu-
lstion In his eyes nor intelligence IN his