ome to be quite a complaint
among farmers' wives, in many places, that servants are not to be
obtained. Those that are available are mere children, whose mothers like
them to go out anywhere at first, just to obtain an insight into the
duties of a servant. The farmer's wife has the trouble and annoyance of
teaching these girls the rudiments of household work, and then, the moment
they are beginning to be useful, they leave, and almost invariably go to
the towns. Those that remain are the slow-witted, or those who are tied in
a measure by family difficulties--as a bedridden mother to attend to; or,
perhaps, an illegitimate child of her own may fetter the cottage girl.
Then she goes out in the daytime to work at the farmhouse, and returns to
sleep at home.

Cottage girls have taken to themselves no small airs of recent years--they
dress, so far as their means will go, as flashily as servants in cities,
and stand upon their dignity. This foolishness has, perhaps, one good
effect--it tends to diminish the illegitimate births. The girls are
learning more self-respect--if they could only achieve that and eschew the
other follies it would be a clear gain. It may be questioned whether
purely agricultural marriages are as common as formerly. The girl who
leaves her home for service in the towns sees a class of men--grooms,
footmen, artisans, and workmen generally--not only receiving higher wages
than the labourers in her native parish, but possessing a certain amount
of comparative refinement. It is not surprising that she prefers, if
possible, to marry among these.

On the other hand, the young labourer, who knows that he can get good
wages wherever he likes to go, has become somewhat of a wanderer. He roams
about, not only from village to village, but from county to county;
perhaps works for a time as a navvy on some distant railway, and thus
associates with a different class of men, and picks up a sort of coarse
cynicism. He does not care to marry and settle and tie himself down to a
routine of labour--he despises home pleasures, preferring to spend his
entire earnings upon himself. The roaming habits of the rising generation
of labourers is an important consideration, and it has an effect in many
ways. Statistics are not available; but the impression left on the mind is
that purely rural marriages are not so frequent, notwithstanding that
wages at large have risen. When a young man does marry, he and his wife
not uncommonly