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

We found the following In recent num-
Der of the New Orleans Christian Advocate.
1t was among the selected matter, but no
credit was given to the Journal frem which
it was copied
The "hind" or serf of the English soil
has hitherto been the very dultest, most
stolid, ignorant and torpid of all specimens
of human nature but at last be has been
aroused to self-assertion. The great strike
of two years ago began in "England's gar
deu," the fairest and richest of the English
shires, where, Gas you ride along the ever
famous highway between Coventry and
Warwick, abundance seems written all
over the fecund earth, laboring under its
lavish crops, aud adorned by it's beautiful
the midst of all this plenty the peasant is
half starved in the most warm, cozy OF
English landscapes he is half frozen |;
amidst a universal growth and prosperity
he alone grows not, but remains stunted
amidst an arid existence, cut off 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 OPP
pressed are lack of good food, lack of
healthful and decent habitation, lack Of
adequate wages, and lack of education. A
moments consideration of actual figures
indicates the inadequacy of wages. In the
southern sbires, such as Dorset, Hamp-
shire, Devon aud Somerset, the wages of
the peasant range from nine to twelve shil-
lings week ($2 25 to $3). In the eastern
shires, such as Cambridge, Suffolk, Essex
and Huntingdon, they range from twelve
to fourteen or fifteen shiiiings t$3 to $40
or SO 75). The recent great clock OUT in
eastern England was caused by the demand
of tue peasants for fourteen instead of
thirteen shilHpgs. In the northern shires
York Lincoln, Cumberland, Westmore
T.,,,
teen shillings to one pound ($3 so to So.
Thus the very highest wages in that part
of the country where farm labor is most
stalwart aud most healthy consists of sixty
to seventy five cents a 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. It's matched
and moss hung roof, it's clambering wood
bine and boneysuckle, its venerable age
it's coy nesting among the rich, dark
green foliage, crafty the eye and fasclnate
the fancy. The reality is n sad and sug
pestive contradiction to all this. Spital-
fields and Seven Dials, the New Road aud |
Smitbfield, s1uns of overcro wded London, |
are not more reekipg with disease or with |
moral pestilences than the wretched ham
let's. in the midst OF exquisite landscape,
of the English kinds. The peasant has |
been doomed not only to ignorance him |
self. but to see his children grow up in an !
IGNORANCE as dense and hopeless as his |
own, The squire and farmer have been in
the habit of regarding education as applied |
Mt least to peasants, as an lnterloper, u |
and a nuisance. When year
or two ago, tue 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 |
districte school boards were almost invari |
ABLY voted down by large majorlties and
to- day the boon of universal and free edu
cation, made permissive by Parliament, is
rejected in those places where the rural
Rnd the established clergy pOs-
sess the dominant Influences. cit lie i'm
possible" says an English writer, ITO ex.
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 bat 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 spec1- |
lntion in his eyes nor intelligence IN his |