The times., 1901-04-21
TIE HIRING FAIRS OF ENGLAND
The Passing OF an Ancient md pie
taresgue Custom.
- ~ IN Nan - }


| Among the passing phases Of country
| life. as one is reminded by the advent OF
March. is the hiring that once through
| out all England was the ordinary means
| OF engaging farm servants It's name and
| date varied with the locality. In the
| south district Of Lincolnshire il is Gus
| tomary to hold a stats OF statute fair
! as early in the year as January. the ser
] wants entering on their engagements ou
| April l6. The Cambridgeshire hirings take
| place at Wisbech during September The
! ''mops of the midland and western coun-
| ties were held some in May, but most in
the autumn. But in every one of them
| the system is dying out. and the hiring
| fair IS going the way of the horse and
sheep and general fairs-that is to say,
| II is ceasing to exist Like a great many
other old institutions it has been ruined
oN lhe Chcdp press Your rustic IS well
aware that for a siXpenny advertisement
ne can at any time make known his wish
Tor change.
The ancient custom dies hardest among
the tenacious Mortimer. and hear that
the first of March hirings was very well
attended indeed PlOughmen. naturally
enough. were in high spirits. the wages
commanded being satisfactory to them.
Sixteen shiliings week was given in
cash, and of course this was in addition
to the payment in kind which have always
bulked largely in the North. and include
tage, from a thousand 10 fifteen hundred
yards OF potatoes. and various measures
of corn. Payment In kind is always tend
ing toward diSuSe and the Feeling is
niteiy fixed and remuneration be in mon
ey, the bond between master and man be-
ing only what Carlyle called the cash
neXus. 1t is quite new idea in agri-
culture
II We remember that it was the loss Of
indirect advantages such as that of COM
mon grazing that ended the career Of the
once famous British yeoman and com
PEELED so mary sales in the late eight
eenth and early nineteenth century, we
may well look with suspicion upon this
general craving for hard cash. One
would not like 10 see the Northern rus
tic spoiled. In an age which shows so
many signs of decadence it is good to
see that his figure is as burly, his voice
as strong as ever, it is good to hear him
at those hirings eXclaiming with pleased
surprise, the while energetically shak-
ing hands, "1St ee2 You Will hear il
again and again with variations as you
sauuter down where master and man
have been negotiating. rs that 'ee
johnny 'Eh, Mary hinny; surely that s
not ee?' Throughout the year they do
not depend so much on cider (which is
nearly always hard and of great alcoholic
strength and beer. the home brewed fOur-
ale varying a s the Southern rustic. Cider
Is very good drinking. but not the cider
they drink-"Her be rare good zider mus
ter. thick and bitter" and ale not to be
despised. but not the wayside home brew
ed OF the Eastern counties The North
erner is safer with his milk all the year
round varied by "a Bit OF burst" at
the hirings.
The Northern peasant woman has very
greatly changed in recent years ''Verd-
ant Green can scarcely be called an an
clent work, and il seems TO the writer
that the bOndager remained up to quite
recently as she was described in that
amusing volume l remember her as a
very buXom woman, supported on legs
like two stout pillars, her frock very
short showing her leggins and wooden
clogs. She Wore bOngrace, too; that
from certain ballads in the ROxburgh col
lecllOn seems at one time to have been
common to all over England 1t was
tunny shaped bonnet with a projection
that reSembled the hood Of a carriage
and for short it was called ugly But
the houdager of today, who calls herself
an outworker. has departed sadly from
TINS model Not even in the fields will
she wear an ugly, and she comes TO the
wair with a genteel hat and a veil to it.
while her hair is over her ears and curied
round her eyebrows quite in the manner
or a genteel shop-girl or barmaid. And
this was not the worst of it,
one of my correspondents who is
most trustworthy observer of peasant life.
draws attention to a silly and pernicious
habit of theirs in the following words
Il am certain only z quarter of the wo-
men looked healthy, and these were near
ly all the middle-aged ones They are in
the most frightfully anaemic and dyspep-
tic condition, and very few but had most
of their teeth out They looked more deli
cate than the town girls Many of them
had the most exquisite complexions imag-
Unable, but not of the kind we associate
with good health. To get the extraordi-
nary pallOr and the faint pink they eat
cts. until it is impossible for them to
digest decent meal"