New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1895-06-23
ENGLISH PEASANTS.
STUDY OF THEIR SOCIAL AND PoLITI-
CAL EVOLUTION.

1t Is possible to discover romance In the story
Of British labor. In which the peasant Is the nero
OF a long struggle with adverse conditions with
some such thought In mind Mr.. GARNER mas ar
ranged his Annals" Once the peasant was
slave. now he is freeman; once he belonged To
the land which he titled. now he Is In lalr way
TO become q freeholder lie has. on the whoie
rarely been better off than he Is at the present
day, and he has perhaps never been more us
contented Mr. GARNER writes from the point or
view OF the landowner and employer OF farm
labor who has not merely toe interest OF an
expert In his theme. but also a kindly feeling not
often shared by the city-bred economist to whom
Hodge has never been anything but name The
torrance OF tho peasant began where. accord
Ing 10 somc people II ought TO end. namely. IN
a communal equality where ownership sat SO
lightly upon each individual that the Idea OF
property never occurred to him. MI Earher
supposes that this idyll!c condition or ahairs
might have lasted as long as peace ana plenty
continued But II could not resist war and fam
Inc. Little communities that had before paid no
attention to each other were suddenly drawn to-
Eether. The men who had enjoyed an informal
headship now gathered as the confessed repre-
sentatives OF their villages TO discuss measures
OF common safety. the earliest anticipation OF
what In modern times would be called debate
increase the powers Of the prosperous man In
each community and to lessen those OF others
and there were unfortunates who left solely with
thcr capacity of labor, fell into servile class.
Mr. GARNER evades narrowly the danger OF de-
irving the whole rural laborirg class from the
slave OF the village community. for he maintains
that It's ranks have been often recruited from
that part Of the nation which was obliged TO
give UP its rights OF property for The bare means
OF subsistence. 1t largely by the Same proc
ess OF barter that the prosperous man became
An overload even in distant Roman times max
ing a place 10 be filed afterward by a man OF
alien race In William the Conqueror's time
q, 900 Englishmen replaced by an equal
number OF Frenchmen not as owners Of the SOIL
but as employers Of native labor. The lGoorers
position was unchanged. but he suddenly found
himself in relations with people whom ne mao
never known before. Though he could not 'aik
with these new people and mad the natural preju-
dice of race against them, yet he soon found that
they were less drunken. less quarrelsome' less
scrupuous perhaps. but keener. thriftier ana
more watchful than the old Saxon mobiles. The
new employer looked far beyond his neighbour
hood beyond England, and began to manage the
land which he owed 10 the King with an eye on
the markets Of Europe. And the serf found NM
self still the owner of land almost In the same
sense that those above him were. He owed as
they did certain duties for his holding. But when
these were performed he could leave his piece Oh
ground 10 his heirs When he left II unproheh
to his eldest son. he gave the latter chance 10
hold his own in the world when the children oi-
vided II. they incurred the Utmost certain penalty
NJ descent to a lower social grade than that 10
which they were born. In the struggle TO rise
again only those who were strong and capable
survived But his best right lay In the fact that
he was a warrior. The bill and the longoow were
familiar to his hand Without him those wars
which England was engaged in from time to
time could not have beer waged. II he had TO
be held to his place by strong laws. he. never
theless could never safely be oppressed beyond
what he deemed the limit of justice He steadily
won concessions for his class In spite OF the laws
which restricted him as an individual Those
who read OF such arbitrary interference with the
comforts and freedom OF the poor people as the
curfew and the venery laws are reminded by
Mr. GARNER that the darkness Of night and the
gloom OF the trees sheltered the Saxon assassin
and that the corpses Of murdered Normans were
a familiar sight In out-ofthcway places. From
the reign Of the Conqueror 10 that OF John, Eng
land was the theatre 81 n guerilla war. In which
the sympathies OF every landlord were enlisted
on the opposite side to that Of his tcnantry. The
traditions Of the harsh legislation rendered
necessary by such circumstances as these lin
gered on 10 infuse with severity the labor. the
sumptuary and the poor laws Of far later times
One thing sure to be observed about the Eng
nsh peasant from first to last he is repre-
scented IN Mr.. Carriers book is his dependence.
He has apparently never been expected to i'm
prove Ills own property. But when II was held
Just out OF his reach ana he under the d.
acfi If
than he was expected to be. But this impression
IA derived mainly from the endless succession Of
laws Of which he was the victim. the inspiration
Of which was as varied as their contents. There
were times when the nation was told that its
duty was to provide for the husbandman be
cause ne was "the staple man Of the Kingdom
Again. there were times when he seemed to stand
before lawmakers chiefly in the guise Of a mendi-
cant whom they did not know how to manage
In fact II Mr.. GARNER had his book to write
over again he might avail himself Of his own
suggestion and divide 1t into four parts in which
he would treat the peasant respectively as
slave, as a beggar. as pauper and as laborer
In each of these parts he would have to record
period when the peasant was treated with UNI
reasonable harshness, and another Of reaction.
when he was pampered. In the times when the
peasant appealed to the public eye more often as
a beggar than in any other capacity. laws were
put In force against him the cruelty Of which
was frghtful. The result was that the kind
hearted people took him to their hearts as a
martyr and secretly shielded him from punish
ment. This is new complaint from the side
of modern systematic charity. 1t was an evil
which Henry VIII sought in the most ptiless
way to remedy. He made an almsgver liable In
ten times the sum OF his oole besides Furnishing
the beggar. Such a prohibition naturally made
the giving Of aims the sly a luxury. For
that reason. for others. vagrancy by the be-
ginning OF the eighteenth century had recovered
some Of tho responsibility which 1t had possessed
in the Middle Ages The rewards Of wandering
mendicancy were such that II again tempted
men who could tell tale or improvisc song