New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1882-05-14
SOME EARLY HORRORS OF TIE CENTURY.
From The Nineteenth Century.

From The Nineteenth century.
found that these boys and g,Is in the old farm
| houses at the beginning OF the century were
| treated at times with an amount oil DIutallty al
| most inconceivable to us. The old people are
unanimous In testfying TO this, and the evidence
they have furnished me is sometimes very dreadful.
She's agong on about that there boy o hers cause
his schoOunaster give him a hiding" grOwlcd out
old Reed who has lived over eighty tour years. "
tell her she knows nothing o what bar-Dar-lty
means. | tell e there amt none o the Dar-bar lty
as there used to beW Then, with much NlgorC us
emphasis and certain eloquence with which the
old man is gifted, he told me what / can never
hope to tell half as forcibly Accept the following
as a version of his story: " l was over eighteen.
had been out in the same farmhouse three years
with man named Grmmer. lie was a hoggish
sort of man-what | call real hogglsl-and never
liked him and thought ought 10 get two pounds
a wear and he hadn't the means. 1t was Just the
wear after the war; and the farmers were breaking
right and lett, and thought he'd break, and 50 he
did; but | was beforehand with him, and went
and hired myself with man OF the name OF Mills; ;
he had that farm, you know. 20 was 10 get
two pounds year, and there were five OF MS, men
and boys, and when | got there didn't like the
looks nor the talk of the other four. When we
went TO bed they began to bounce bit. You
won't be many DAYS, young 'un they SAID before
our master will call you into his little yard And
when j asked what for, they told me that be was
up S1 the snS Th We he had % % 1S
ont by 8 o'clock, and two or three days after I'd
been there | was late. When came down, there
like horses tore legs, but he was lamsh and
walked with stick Boy says be, 90 you and
But never stirred DO you hear T. says he. and
his great voice was like bulls. hear says |,
but Pm not coming Out he jumped and be was
that mad that he was no more lame than you are
lie was nimble as a cat. And there he'd got me
griped in his left hand, and of those brewers
whips all one piece and six feet long, i'll the other.
And there were those four looking on to see if I'd
give in. and he took up if Pd been puppy,
and flung Inc couple of yards off, and swish it
came. was stubborn. and that mad that ielt no
more than if he'G been hitting an anvil. He GER
tainly would have killed me if the team men hadn't
called out to him: Master. you'll be hung next
sssizes for killing that boy Then he went in, and
then founo my clothes were cut as If it had been
with q knife, and l bleeding all over lie
wasn't such bad master, though, for all that o.
course he used to fog us, utthen, when he did you
see he meant it cause O them wrists"
Think of that you who maunder on about the
simple tastes OF your progenitors. Was there no
redress for nhuman fer0city like this no protec.
ton for hali-naked lads against these ru.iiansi
None "Where WAS the parson !" Hei He used
to ccme over from Swahham O. Sundays. don't
know what they calfd him" Magistratesf
" What was the use OF my going to the magistratesf
There wasn't laborlng man for miles round would
have dared to appear against farmer; and as for
them they were all alike, and he wasn't such a bad
master after all 1t wasn't half such hoggIsh sort
of q place as Grmmers" But then Farmer
GrImmer hadn't them wrists"
The same hideous cruelty seems to have 'rrn
through everything. Here In my Arcadian retreat
we have for two hundred years had the rare advan-