practically collapsed in 1894. Other unions had been started,
but were then going down hill, and in 1906 only two remained in a
moribund condition. Their main object, to raise the labourer's wages,
was largely counteracted by the acute depression in agriculture, and
though there has since been considerable recovery, there are districts
in England to-day where he only gets 11s. and 12s. a week.

The Labourers' Union helped to deal a severe blow to the 'gang
system', which had grown up at the beginning of the century (when the
high corn prices led to the breaking up of land where there were no
labourers, so that 'gangs' were collected to cultivate it[664]), by
which overseers, often coarse bullies, employed and sweated gangs
sometimes numbering 60 or 70 persons, including small children, and
women, the latter frequently very bad specimens of their sex. These
gangs went turnip-singling, bean-dropping, weeding &c., while
pea-picking gangs ran to 400 or 500. Though some of these gangs were
properly managed, the system was a bad one, and the Union and the
Education Acts helped its disappearance.

FOOTNOTES:

[613] Cylindrical pipes came in about 1843, though they had been
recommended in 1727 by Switzer.

[614] _R.A.S.E. Journal_ (1st series), xxii. 260.

[615] _R.A.S.E. Journal_, 1890, pp. 1 sq.

[616] Ibid., 1894, pp. 205 sq.

[617] McCombie, _Cattle and Cattle Breeders_, p. 33.

[618] These classes, however, did not comprise all the then known
breeds of live stock.

[619] _R.A.S.E. Journal_, 1892, pp. 479 sq.

[620] At the show at Birmingham In 1898 there were 22 entries of
Longhorns; in 1899 a Longhorn Cattle Society was established, and the
herd-book resuscitated. More than twenty herds of the breed are now
well established.

[621] _R.A.S.E. Journal_, 1901, p. 24.

[622] Caird, _English Agriculture in 1850-1_, pp. 252 sq.

[623] Porter, _Progress of the Nation_, p. 142.

[624] _R.A.S.E. Journal_, 1901, p. 25.

[625] Ibid. 1896, p. 96.

[626] Ibid. (1st ser.), vi. 2.

[627] Ibid. (1st ser.), v. 102.

[628] 1838, 64s. 7d; 1839, 70s. 8d.; 1840, 66s. 4d.; 1841, 64s. 4d.

[629] Tooke, _History of Prices_, iv. 19.

[630] C. Wren Hoskyns, _Agricultural Statistics_, p. 5.

[631] The abnormal prices during the Crimean War cannot fairly be
taken into account. The home and foreign supplies of wheat and flour
from 1839-46 were:--

Home Supplies. Foreign Supplies.
qrs