The Pioche weekly record. [volume] (Pioche, Nev.) 1877-1900, 1892-01-14
RURAL ENGLAND.
Changes Taking Place in the So
cial System.
Agricultural Pursuits Eeing Abandone"
by the Young People and tho
Farming Interests
Suffering:

Suffering:
The London Daily News has been
making some sensation in England by
a series of letters on English Village
Life" in various parts of the island,
which 20 TO show that the villages in
all the agricultural districts are being
rapidly deserted by the young men and
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
souires with few to rule over but the
aged and inlrm. In fact, it looks as II
the economic decay, which for fifteen
years has been slowly going on in rural
England, was receiving it's 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
.
borer was born and was expected to
remain in the village, as '1iodge" or
"Chawbacon," and work on the adj
iacent farms in absolute content The
schooling he got consisted mainly OF
the church catechism, and he was eX-
pccted to attend church regularly on
pain of the severe displeasure of the
la
owned most of the cottages, or the
whole village, which was then called
u ''close village" and could drive any
body he pleased out of the parish, and,
besides this, he was apt to be q 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 1.-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
umvirate-thc 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 ant
the worlhouse that he is practically
unmanageabc. The vote has giver
the final touch to his impudcncc, and il
many parts of rural England the end oil
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 wa
no place in it for the mental growth o
the social advancement of the laborcr
1t was delightful arrangement for tn
farmer, the vicar and the squire, an
was probably the best ever devise
since the Roman republic fell for tn
supply of great statesmen, soldiers an
Judges to the state, but it was full G
elaborate provisions for crushing OF
hope and ambition in the poor maj
Certainly no modern community ha
ever had such a supply of first.rate pul
lie servants to draw on as the mano
/ houses all over England Scotland an
; Ireland furnished. The 'younge
; sons" may be said to have made En-
, land great and built up the British er
, pirc, but their day is done. Hodge r
fuses any longer to be sacrificed to Il
national greatness.
There is something pathetic in Il
swarm of letters the Daily News is r
ceiving suggesting ways of making v
$ lage life attractive and keeping Il
young men and maids at home, but tn,
have all futile air. The Special
brushes aside all the little devices I
saving the old village by frankly o
llnowledging that the tendency of pc
: ulation to the towns is irresistible, al
that the world must accept the fact tn
I agriculture has become, or is fast /
: coming, discredited occupation viii,
none but the laggards or invalids of t
industrial army will hereafter conse
S to follow.