ages on the farm, with
three bedrooms each, and some larger, with every modern appliance, each
having a garden of a quarter of an acre attached and close at hand, for
which cottage and garden they paid 1s. per week rent. The whole of these
cottages were insured by the farmer himself, their furniture, &c., in
one lump, and the insurance policy cost him, as nearly as possible, 1s.
3d. per cottage per year. For this he deducted 1s. per year each from
their wages. None of the men would have insured unless he had insisted
upon doing it for them. These men had from six to eight quarts of beer
per man (over and above their 18s. a week) during harvest every day. In
spring and autumn their wages are much increased by piece-work, hoeing,
&c. In winter the farmer draws their coal for them in his waggons, a
distance of eight miles from the nearest wharf, enabling them to get it
at cost price. This is no slight advantage, for, at the present high
price of coal, it is sold, delivered in the villages, at 2s. per cwt.
Many who cannot afford it in the week buy a quarter of a cwt. on
Saturday night, to cook their Sunday's dinner with, for 6d. This is at
the rate of L2 per ton. Another gentleman, a large steam cultivator in
the Vale, whose name is often before the public, informs me that his
books show that he paid L100 in one year in cash to one cottage for
labour, showing the advantage the labourer possesses over the mechanic,
since his wife and child can add to his income. Many farmers pay L50 and
L60 a year for beer drunk by their labourers--a serious addition to
their wages. The railway companies and others who employ mechanics, do
not allow them any beer. The allowance of a good cottage and a quarter
of an acre of garden for 1s. per week is not singular. Many who were at
the Autumn Manoeuvres of the present year may remember having a
handsome row of houses, rather than cottages, pointed out to them as
inhabited by labourers at 1s. per week. In the immediate neighbourhood
of large manufacturing towns 1s. 6d. a week is sometimes paid; but then
these cottages would in such positions readily let to mechanics for 3s.,
4s., and even 5s. per week. There was a great outcry when the Duke of
Marlborough issued an order that the cottages on his estate should in
future only be let to such men as worked upon the farms where those
cottages were situated. In reality this was the very greatest blessing
the Duke could have conferred upon the agricultu