the tenant to pay high wages in experiences like this.

A third example is a rakish-looking lad just rising into manhood. Such
young men are very much in demand and he would not have the slightest
difficulty in obtaining employment, yet he is constantly out of work. When
a boy he began by summoning the carter where he was engaged for cuffing
him, charging the man with an assault. It turned out to be a trumpery
case, and the Bench advised his parents to make him return and fulfil his
contract. His parents thought differently of it. They had become imbued
with an inordinate sense of their own importance. They had a high idea of
the rights of labour; Jack, in short, was a good deal better than his
master, and must be treated with distinguished respect. The doctrines of
the Union countenanced the deduction; so the boy did not return. Another
place was found for him.

In the course of a few months he came again before the Bench. The
complaint was now one of wrongful dismissal, and a claim for a one pound
bonus, which by the agreement was to have been paid at the end of the year
if his conduct proved satisfactory. It was shown that his conduct had been
the reverse of satisfactory; that he refused to obey orders, that he
'cheeked' the carters, that he ran away home for a day or two, and was
encouraged in these goings on by the father. The magistrates, always on
the side of peace, endeavoured to procure a reconciliation, the farmer
even paid down the bonus, but it was of no use. The lad did not return.

With little variations the same game has continued ever since. Now it is
he that complains, now it is his new master; but any way there is always a
summons, and his face is as familiar in the court as that of the chairman.
His case is typical. What is a farmer to do who has to deal with a rising
generation full of this spirit?

Then there are the regular workhouse families, who are perpetually
applying for parochial relief. From the eldest down to the youngest member
they seem to have no stamina; they fall ill when all others are well, as
if afflicted with a species of paralysis that affects body, mind, and
moral sense at once. If the phrase may be used without irreverence, there
is no health in them. The slightest difficulty is sufficient to send an
apparently strong, hale man whining to the workhouse. He localises his
complaint in his foot, or his arm, or his shoulder; but, in truth, he does
not know himself what is the ma