The St. Johns herald., 1892-03-17
RURAL ENGLAND.
Changes Taking Place in the So-
 cial System.
Agricultural Pursuits Being Abandoned by the Young People and the Farming Interests
 Suffering.

The London Daily News has been
 making some sensation in England by
 q series of letters on English ''Village
 Life" in various parts of the island,
 which go to show that the villages in
 all the agricultural districts are being
 rapidly deserted by the young men and
 women to s1ch a 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 infrn. h fact, it looks as if 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.
 It 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 la- borer was born and was expected to remain in the village, as Hodge" or ''Chawbacon," and work on the ad- 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 A. I ''close village" and could drive any body he pleased out of the parish, and, besides this, he was apt to be 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 cancellations of religion.
 All this has of late years been great ly changed. The new schools, the
 
 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-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 aud so un- grateful for the coal, the blankets and the worl1house that he is practically unmanageable. The vote has given the final touch to his impotence, 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 neur at hand.
 There was a 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 first-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 em- 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 a futile air. The Spectator brushes aside all the little devices for saving the old village by frankly ac- lznowledging 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 army will hereafter consent to follow.