The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1901-04-19
ENGLISH HIRING FAIRS.

Out.
Among the passing phases of country
life, as one is reminded by the advent
of March, is the hiring that once
throughout all England was the ordina-
~ means Of engaging farm servants
Its name and date varied with the 10.
cality. In the south district of Lincoln
shire 1T Is customary to hold "statis
or statute fair ais early in the year al
January, the servants entering on their
engagements on April 16. The Cam
bridgeshfre hirings take place at Wis
: bech during September The "mops" OF
the midland and western counties We're
held some in May, but most in the au-
tumn. 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 It Is
ceasing to exist. Like great many
other old institutions 1t has been ruined
by the cheap press. Your rustic Is we'll
aware that for q sixpenny advertise
ment he can at any time make known
his wish for a change.
The ancient custom dies hardest
among the tenacious Northmen and !
hear that the first Of the March hirings
was very we'll attended indeed
Ploughmen, naturally enough, were In
high spirits, the wages commanded be-
ing satisfactory to them, Sixteen shil-
lings week was given in cash, and of
course this was in addition to the pay
ments in kind which have always
bulked largely In the north, and in
clude such solid sperquisites as a rent
free cottage, from thousand to fifteen
hundred yards of potatoes and various
measures of corn. Payment In kind is
always tending toward dsuse, and the
feeling Is that hours of labor should be
very definitely fixed and remuneration
be in money, tie bond between master
and man being only what Carlyle called
''the cash nexus.' It is quite new
deal in agriculture.
| five remember that 1t was the loss Of
| indirect advantages such as that of
common grazing that ended the career
| of the once famous British yeoman and
compelled so many sales in the late
| eighteenth and early nineteenth centu-
RES we may well look with suspicion
upon this general craving for hard sash.
One would not like to see the northern
rustic spoiled In an age which shows
so many signs of decadence 1t Is good
to see that his figure is as burly, his
voice as strong as ever; 1t Is good to
hear him at those hirings exclaiming
with pleased surprise, the while ener-
getically shaking hands, Est 'ee?"
You will hear 1t again and again with
variations as you saunter down where
master and man have been negotiating.
"Is that zee, johnny" "Eh Mary him
ny; surely that's no 'ee?" Throughout
the year they donot depend so much on
cider (Which Is nearly always hard and
of great alcoholic strength) and beer,
the home brewed four-ale varying as
the southern rustic. Cider is very good
drinking, but not the cider they drink
Her be rare good zider muster, thick
and bitter" and ale not to be daspised
but not the wayside home brewed of the
eastern counties. The northerner Is
safer with his milk all the year round,
varied by "a bit, Of BURST at the hir-
ings. ks,
The northern peasant woman has
very greatly changed in recent years,
"Verdant Green can scarcely he called |
an ancient work, and it seems to the
writer that the bondager remained up I
to quite recently as she was described |
in that amusing volume. / remember |
her as a very buxom woman, supported |
on legs like two stout pillars, her frock |
very short, showing her leggings and |
wooden clogs. She wore a bongrace,
too; that from certain ballads In the |
Roxburgh collection seems at one time
to have been common all over England |
1T was funny shaped bonnet, with a
that resembled the hood Of a
and for short 1t was called an
ugly, But the bondager of to-day, who
calls herself an outworker, has depart
ed sadly from this model Not even In
the fields will she wear an ugly, and
she comes to the fair with genteel hat
and veil to 1t, while her hair is over
her ears and curled round her eyebrows
quite in the manner of a genteel shop
girl or barmaid. And this was not the
worst of 1t, One of my correspondents,
who is a most trustworthy observer Of
peasant life, draws attention to a silly
and pernicious habit of theirs in the fol- |
lowing words: II am certain only a
quarter Of the women looked healthy.
and these were nearly all the middle
aged ones. They are in the most
anaemic and dyspeptic con-
lition, and very few but had most of
heir teeth out. They looked more del
cate than the town girls. Many of
hem had the most exquisite complex
|
ons imaginable, but not of the kind we
associate with good health. To get the
pallor and the faint pink
hey eat quantities of raw oatmeal,
tarch, rice, etc, till it is impossible for
hem to digest a decent meal."-Pall
Mall Gazette.