The Irish standard., 1891-11-28
RI N I'd | D.
Changes Taking Place IS the l'a So g
cial System. 5z
Agricultural Pursuits Being Abandoned
by the Young People and tho
Farming Interests
Suffering.

series of letters on English Village
Life in various parts Of the island,
which 90 to show that the villages in
all the agricultural districts are being
rapidly deserted by the young men and J.
women to such point that, in spite OF
the aid derived from machinery, the
farmers find increasing difficulty in
sowing and harvesting their crops, and
the parsons are left with empty
churches and Sunday schools, and the
squires with few to rule over but the
aged and infrm. In fact, it looks as II
the economic decay, which for fifteen
years has been slowly going on in rural
England, was receiving its final impulse
from the dislike of the younger genera
ton to country life.
1t is not simply agriculture which IS
threatened with ruin, however, but a
social system which has come down to
our day almost untouched from the
middle ages. In this system the Ia
borer was born and was expected to
remain in the village, as 'Hodge" or
'sChawbacon," and work on the adj
jacent farms in absolute content. The
schooling he got consisted mainly OF
the church catechism, and he was ex-
pected to attend church regularly on
pain of the severe displeasure of the
parson and the squire. The latter
owned most of the cottages, or the
whole village, which was then called
''close village" and could drive any
body he pleased out of the parish, and,
besides this, he was apt to be a justice
of the peace, with large summary
powers, an Office so often held by the
parson. When Hodge got old Or sick
the ladies of ''the great house" or
the parsonage gave him and his wife
fuel and blankets in the winter and
preached resignation to him, and when
he got too old for any work they both
took refuge in the workhouse, in
which, like the great bulk of their
class, they died with the consultations
OF religion.
All this has of late years been great
ly changed. The new schools, the
railroads, the ocean steamers, the cheap
newspapers and the political agitators
have opened up the world to Hodges
astonished gaze, and he refuses any
longer to live under the parish tri-
unvirate-the squire, the parson and
the farmer. He goes off to the great
towns or emigrates, and, if he remains,
is SO saucy and independent and so un-
grateful for the coal, the blankets and
the workhouse that he is practically
unmanageable. The vote has given
the final touch to his i1npudence, and in
many parts of rural England the end Of
the world seems to the little circle in
the manor house and the vicarage to be
very near at hand.
There was great deal in the old or
der that was attractive, only there was
no place in it for the mental growth or
the social advancement Of the laborer.
It was delightful arrangement for the
farmer, the vicar and the squire, and
was probably the best ever devised
since the Roman republic fell for the
supply of great statesmen, soldiers and
judges to the state, but it was full of
elaborate provisions for crushing out
hope and ambition in the poor man.
Certainly no modern community has
ever had such a supply of frst~rate pub
lie servants to draw on as the manor
houses all over England, Scotland and
Ireland furnished. The younger
sons'' may be said to have made Eng
land great and built up the British en-
pire, but their day is done. Hodge re-
fuses any longer to be sacrificed to the
national greatness.
There is something pathetic in the
swarm Of letters the Daily News is re-
ceiving suggesting ways of making vii
lage life attractive and keeping the
young men and maids at home, but they
| have all futile air The Spectator
brushes aside all the little devices for
saving the old village by frankly &C;
knowledging that the tendency of pop
ulation to the towns is irresistible, and
that the world must accept the fact that
agriculture has become, or is fast be-
| coming, discredited occupation which
none but the laggards Or invalids of the
industrial army will hereafter consent
to follow.
Spurious Souvenirs.