e is only one
Irishman on the work, for they would not allow any other Irishman.'[23]

In the South of England wages are lower and the navvies are less expert.
In South Devon 'very few North countrymen; they are men who have worked
down the line of the Great Western; that have followed it from one
portion to another'.[24] The riff-raff from the villages cannot work
stroke for stroke with the navvy. 'In tilting the waggons they could,
but in the barrow runs it requires practice and experience.'[25]

The high wages of the navvy are offset by the disadvantages of his
employment. He is lucky if he gets the whole of his earnings in cash. In
the Trent Valley they are paid once a month, 'but every fortnight they
receive what is called "sub" that is subsistence money, and between the
times of subsistence money and times of the monthly payment, they may
have tickets by applying to the time-keeper, or whoever is the person to
give them out, for goods; and those tickets are directed to a certain
person; they cannot go to any other shop.'[26]

The huts in which they live are little better than pigsties, and
especially bad for regular navvies, who take their families about with
them. In South Devon, 'man, woman, and child all sleep exposed to one
another.'[27] On a section of the London and Birmingham Railway fever
and small-pox broke out. 'I have seen', says an eye-witness, 'the men
walking about with the small-pox upon them as thick as possible and no
hospitals to go to.'[28] The country people, the witness continues, make
money by letting rooms double. When one lot came out, another lot went
in.

Such is the navvy's life at work and at rest.

2. If we can suppose that our camera is capable of distinguishing
centres of industrial activity, then our picture will give us 'vital'
patches, which stand out against a background of deadness. This deadness
is rural England.

What is the condition of the rural counties of Wessex? 'Everywhere the
cottages are old, and frequently in a state of decay.' 'Ignorance of the
commonest things, needle-work, cooking, and other matters of domestic
economy, is ... nearly universally prevalent.'[29] To make both ends
meet the wife has abandoned her now useless spinning-wheel and hired
herself out to hoe turnips or pick stones.

On the little farms inside the factory districts of Lancashire and
Yorkshire, on which the country hand-loom weavers eke out a miserable
livelihood by cultivating patch