Connecticut western news., 1876-08-25
"A LINCOLNSHIRE GANG."
Agricultural I4aborers In England-sSmnll
 Children in tho Fields.


 Children in tho Fields.
 An engraving in an illustrated paper represents phase of labor to which we are happily strangers in this country. An agricultural gang, composed mainly of children, are setting out for the scene of their daily labors in the Lin colnshire fens, the rich, marshy and un- healthy pasture lands which stretch along the coast of the cc1tnty of Lincoln from WainAeee to it's southern boundary. These lands, which were originally a vast morass, are now drained by canals in all directions, and produce extraor- dinary crops of grain and grass; yet the water is bad, and considerable tracts are still fit for no more profitable use than the breeding and rearing of geese, which are kept principally for their quills and feathers, and are watched by children. Horses and cattle are also raised here and fattened cn the fens, and their care gives employment to hosts of children, who are driven forth to their days task under gang mas ter,. like slaves under the lash of an overseer. Eight is the age at which they usually join the agricultural gangs in the fens, but in some instances they have been known to do so even at four. It is common practice with parents to stipulate that if the elder children are hired to a gang master, that he shall take the younger ones also.
 ] The distances which these poor little victims of toll run, or rather walk, to and from the scene of their daily task is really ppalling-sometimes eight miles a day. They leave at five in the morn ing, under the care of the gang master, and return at five at night. They work eight or nine hours, and "during the last hour they are at work, D says an old gang mas; CT, "they will ask forty times l what o'clock it isl"
 In this country farmers can have but little conception of the privations of an English farm laborer. The land in
 England is concentrated in the hands of & few immensely wealthy proprietors,
 who let large tracts of it lie falIow for
 pleasure grounds and the raising oi
 game, and let the rest to farmers on
 such hard terms that the latter can only
 pay starvation wages to the binds ol
 peasants whom they employ to till the
 grounds, but who make up the bulk oi
 the population. For instance, while
 there are thirty thousand rich land
 owners, whose joint income amounts tc
 sixty million pounds sterling, there are over million peasants who are depend
 ent on the labor of their hands for thei1 bare subsistence. Scarcely any of these
 know how to read and write; and they
 are badly fed, badly clothed, badly housed, and badly paid. The highes .. wages that the most able bodied farm
 laborers can command is from sixty tt seventy-fve cents a day, while in the dairy and fruit growing districts iron forty to fifty cents..is the average rate ,, "a days work averaging twelve hours , though ill busy seasons it often extend :, to fourteen or fifteen hours. In addi tion, the farm laborer is provided witl a "cottage," or hovel, one story high 2 with thatched roof, and without eel lar, so that the bricks or flags rest ol 5 the ground, with two small rooms, on used as the sitting and cooking room an the other as the bedroom, wher the whole family sleep together; or, b. way of variety, the cottage is tw stories high, with one room above tn other. An improved cottage, with fou roon.s, is sometimes, though rarely . seen. The sickness and demoralizatio resulting from such 8 system are trul
 appalling.
 '. Within few years much has bee done to improve the condition of tn /, English peasantry, both through tn . agricultural unions organized by Josep .. Arch, who, himself peasant, by sturd ., efforts, had achieved the almost unpal alleled feat of rising from his first co1 . dition to 0 modest independence, an . through the appeals made by enlightel ed reformers to the English landlord . and philanthropists. It may be almo' S too much to hope that in England ever t t't man will yet sit under his own vine an o U fig tree, as, with reasonable amount ( = industry and perseverance, he may q = in some parts of our own country; b, e ,S there is certainly reason for believir . that English benevnlence will not Tor 'f tolerate state of affairs that grinds ,a a million of men to abject poverty al ,t degradation.