ocial scale.--I am, Sir, faithfully yours,

RICHARD JEFFERIES.

COATE FARM, SWINDON, _Nov. 12, 1872._

Lord Shaftesbury, in the _Times_, Dec. 6th, says:--

"It is our duty and our interest to elevate the present condition of the
labourer, and to enable him to assert and enjoy every one of his rights.
But I must agree with Mr. Jefferies that, even under the actual system
of things, numerous instances have occurred of a rise in the social
scale as the result of temperance, good conduct, and economy. He has
furnished some examples. I will give only one from my own estate:--'T.
M. was for many years shepherd to Farmer P----; he bought with his
savings a small leasehold property at ---- for L170, and he had
accumulated L100 besides. He had brought up a son and three daughters,
and his son now occupies the leasehold.' This is the statement as given
to me in writing."

LETTER II.

(_To the Editor of the "Times."_)

SIR,--I did not intend to make any reply to the numerous attacks made
upon my letter published in the _Times_ of the 14th inst., but the
statements made by "The Son of a Wiltshire Labourer" are such as I feel
bound to resent on the part of the farmers of this county.

He says he wishes the landed proprietors would take as much care to
provide cottages for their labourers as I represent them as doing. I
repeat what I said, that the cottages on large estates are now, one and
all, fit habitations for human beings. The Duke of Marlborough is a
large proprietor of cottages in this neighbourhood, and his plan has
been, whenever a cottage did not appear sufficiently commodious, to
throw two into one. The owner of the largest estate near Swindon has
been engaged for many years past in removing the old thatched mud
hovels, and replacing them with substantial, roomy, and slate-roofed
buildings. Farmers are invariably anxious to have good cottages. There
is a reluctance to destroy the existing ones, both from the
inconvenience and the uncertainty sometimes of others being erected.
Often, too, the poor have the strongest attachment to the cabin in which
they were born and bred, and would strongly resent its destruction,
though obviously for their good. Farmers never build bad cottages now.
When a tenement falls in, either from decay or the death of the tenant,
the cottage which is erected on its site is invariably a good one. A row
of splendid cottages has recently been erected at Wanborough. They are
very large,