The Washburn times. [volume] (Washburn, Wis.) 1896-1976, 1914-10-01
Feminine Slavery on the Farms
Near London.
Mothers Have to Do Rough Field
Work to Keep Husbands Employ
ment-Poverty of Laborers In
Villages Is Extensive.

London.-There has been trouble
with the farmer, writes Harold Beg
bic in the London Chronicle. The far
mer said to the laborer one day. why
is your wife not in the hopfelds?"
The laborer answered, "She'S i'll at
home" Il can't help that" said the
farmer, "any one who occupies cot
tage of mine has got to tie up the
hops; you know that well enough"
The man went home and talked it
over with his wife. They decided to
look for another job. Better wages
were offered to them in village farth-
er south and today they are going
away with their furniture on a wagon.
The man has been earning 16 shill-
ings a week. He pays nothing for
his cottage, but the freedom of the
cottage entities the farmer to call up
on his wife for the work of hop tying.
The hops have to be tied three times,
and the women are allowed one day
off for their washing. This woman,
starting in the last week of April, had
been twice over her acre of 1000
hills" by May %. The farmer gave
her eight shillings. Unhappily the
children were i'll and could not be sent
to school; the woman had to take
them with her into the fields, and she
says that she paid more than the eight
shillings she earned by the months
hard work in repairs for their boots.
You can understand that there was a
disposition on the part of man and
wife to look out for something rather
better.
Is it not in the nature of slavery
that woman should be forced into
the fields, that she should be COM
PEELED to do very hard, rough work for
her husbands employer, and that she
should have no voice in the matter of
her wages? This particular woman is
a very poor specimen of the human
race; she suffers from terrible neu-
ralgic pains in the head-affecting her
eyesight badly; her cottage was not
pleasant place to visit; she seemed to
have no heart for her life. But to go
twice over an acre of 1000 hills
finding her own rushes and to be paid
eight shillings at the end-this strikes
one as cruel and wicked
When the hops are grown on wires
the women are paid eight shillings
a week; but no one can say that eight
shillings is reasonable wage. And
where the work has to be done at the
peril of the husbands employment,
at the peril of being turned out of
house and home-even a house which
is. like dog hole-one may justly say
that the thing partakes of the nature
of slavery.
This women was once employed by
another woman of higher class, but
when the hop tying season came she
had to leave this work, had to give up
her higher wages and had to go into
the fields. The daughter of another
cottager, earning fair wages in laun-
dry, had to relinquish this employ
ment and accept what the farmer paid
for hop tying. They have no freedom
in the matter.
But what strikes me in this scandal
of waman slavery is the silence of pub
lie opinion. Here In very prosper
Gus village, crowded with rich resi-
dents, and not very far from London,
woman can be forced to do this ill
paid field labor without one word of
condemnation by the church. An
admirable attempt is being made by
the new church of England newspaper,
the Challenge, to create a communal
spirit, to restore the essential charac-
ter of brotherhood, to make the church
realize her duty to the poor. But how
difficult that is! The church in this
particular village is very much alive.
| The services are more beautiful and
reverent than any have ever expe-
rienced in country districts. The rich
give large sums of money. The clergy
man is devout. You would be aston
ished by the catholic spirit of the