The Rutland daily globe. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1873-1877, 1874-10-21
AGRICULTURAL DEPARTMENT.
TEE sERFs OF ENGLAND.
Grossly Immoral Treatment of the
Agricultural Poor.

The tale of revolving. which
is all enforced condition of the life of many
English laborers has never been told.
When some years ago the Chartist troubles
aroused men like 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,
aristocratic England affected an astonish-
ment at the pictures of life disclosed, and
then--let the poor go on rs they always
have done in England living on "subsis-
tence wages, which too frequently afford
not even subsistence. Such books as "Alton
Locke" are supposed TO have had an effect
in attracting some attention to a very dark
side of civilized life, but what have they
done to enlighten it? Almost nothing. A
recent letter to the Times signed by Henry
Fawcett, shows the utter hardness and
blindness oil the farmers who, because the
years harvest has been abundant, have re-
duced the wages of farm laborers from the
pittance of twelve shillings week to ele-
ven shillngs, the excuse being that bread
will be cheaper. and so the laborers hard
| earnings must 80 to swell the more orli-
nary large incomes of the farmers. The
hardest thing ON Gods earth is that same
English farmer; himself and his are all he
cares for, and he will grind the faces of
the poor with a recklessness of all human
considerations almost impossible to con
celve.
And the result is such as is shocking to
human nature. Recent investigations in
the hop-growing district by Farnham-and
this is a softened picture-show state OF
morals which the decorous Times will
never put before the public in all its le
voting forms. lIop-picking is a healthfu
sort of work, and in the proper season, at
tracts men and women from towns-frOm
| tailoring on starvation wages, and sewing
| where it is difficult to tell which is less ma
teral, the sewing-man or her shadow
thrown on the floor by a suffering tallow
| chandle-to the country. How they live
there may be seen by anyone who cares to
read the facts. Annually, three or four
thousand hoppers go out to Farnham dis
trict, bring cling their babies and older chill
| dren of both sexes with them--the latter to
pick and the former to sprawl about and
take care of themselves while their elders
are at work. After work is over, these
people are penned in great barns, which at
night are packed with men, women and
children, who cook and cat their slight
meals thereln-when they cook anything,
for generally their only food is bread and
cheese-and then tall aslecp-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 oe M old tcbauviv5 Ro,,,o..
poet to describe. This is not the case in
| 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 in
ured to vice as well as poverty and are
corrupted before they are even mature.
What effect this will have on English NOR
ais is a question the statesmen will soon
have to think about very seriously. AT
present the life led at the hop pickings is
so revolving that the pen refuses to de-
scribe it.