Wages of Labourers. 207 results are, that in the villages thus favoured there is not now a single poacher, and that the labourers residing in these improved dwellings take a pride in the cultivation of the land, and carry off the best prizes for vegetables from the Labourers' Friend Society. . . . It is admitted that the labourer cannot afford to pay fair interest on this outlay, but Mr. Sturt affirms that the property generally is increased in value by increasing the comforts of the cultivators." Were all landowners like Mr. Sturt, the labourer would have little cause to complain. Unfortunately, his complaints are only too well-grounded, for the landowners, in many cases, not only have failed to provide suitable accommodation for their servants, but have even pulled down the miserable dwellings which did exist. The following facts are only a few out of the countless woes' of which our Poor Law has been the spring. In the neighbourhood of Norwich, a few years since, the destruction of cottage property was disgraceful in the extreme. It was impossible to obtain a piece of ground for building purposes in any of the villages within eight or ten miles of that city. Many of the estates had been entirely cleared of tenantry. To such an extent had the system been carried on, that there were in Norwich not less than 500 agricultural labourers who had to walk to their work distances varying from three to seven miles. Again, it has been stated that in five villages in Buckinghamshire, between the years 1801 and 1831, the number of families was increased by 129, while the dwellings were diminished by 41. In seven villages of Suffolk the increase of families was 248, the decrease of residences 124; while in five villages of Sussex the increase was 62, the decrease 59! This selfishness which, while adding field to field by no means adds house to house, is like all other forms of selfishness, short-sighted and self-defeating. Notwithstanding that we have succeeded very tolerably in reducing the condition of the labourer to that of a machine, we have not yet discovered any contrivance by which we can obtain an unlimited amount of work from him. So much work, and no more, is to be got out of any one set of sinews and muscles. If a portion of this working power is expended in the act of walking from six to twelve miles a day, so much less power remains for ploughing, hoeing, carting, or reaping. The farmer will soon find his poor's rate repaid by the improved quantity and quality of the work done by labourers who live close at hand, instead of two hours' journey off. The second topic affecting the condition of the agricultural labourer, which we have to consider, is that of Wages. Let it be stated, at the outset, that we do not intend to enter upon the very difficult question of the rate of wages. It seems as if the amount paid must be regulated by the law of supply and demand. To the labourer earning seven shillings a week, the *Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society for 1854.' most most ardent philanthropist can offer no other advice than to emigrate. You cannot,' he will say, 'obtain anything approaching to a livelihood in your own country; here you have no chance of getting a fair day's wages for a fair day's work. It is very sad that this should be so. There is no help for it, however. So long as your employer can get your services at the present low rate, so long will he refuse to give you higher pay. There is not room enough for you here. You must seek another country. You can pass from a land of want to a land of plenty at an almost nominal expense. If you go, it will be better for yourself and better for those who remain behind.'* The remarks that we have to make will be confined to the kind, rather than the amount of payment. In some counties, chiefly in the western district of England, it is usual for the farmer to pay his men a portion of their wages in cider. This portion varies from a tenth to a fifth of the whole amount paid. After an extended inquiry, made chiefly in the counties of Somerset, Devon, Cornwall, Dorset, Wilts, Hereford and Monmouth, we find that this practice is condemned by almost every one who has not a direct interest in maintaining it. At the present time, the subject is obtaining a great share of public attention, and in the county of Hereford, especially, the cider truck system has been most warmly discussed. Now it does appear, at first sight, unjust to the labourer that he should be compelled to take 20 per cent. of his earnings in an article of food, which, viewed any way, cannot be deemed very nutritious. And when we further find, upon careful chemical analysis, that the amount of nourishment contained in cider is so small as to render it necessary to imbibe thirty-two gallons of that liquid before the system has received nourishment equal to that afforded by one pound of wheaten bread, we may well protest, in the name of the workman, against so thriftless and extravagant an arrangement. Nor is this all. It has been found that the appetite for intoxicating liquors thus excited, grows by what it feeds on. At harvest seasons, especially, the quantity of cider drunk is incredible. From hence arise numerous quarrels, during which the work is stopped, and the farmer not unfrequently fails to ger his crops housed in good condition by reason of the brawling or the intoxication of his men. Enormous as is the ordinary supply of this beverage, the labourer is by no means content with what is furnished him during his daily work. In the evening he will resort to the *Able-bodied farm-labourers may emigrate to Melbourne at the cost to themselves of 11. 'cider-shop, Evils of Payments in kind. 209 ⚫cider-shop,' and there spend, perhaps, another fifth of his wages. The consequences are disastrous in the extreme. Not only does the man himself suffer from intemperance, but his wife and children suffer from poverty. Health, comfort, domestic happiness are all sacrificed, recklessly squandered, that the appetite for drink may be satisfied. Again and again have the moralist and the philanthropist pointed the moral so easily drawn from these sad facts. But it seems, alas! as though the effect were weakened by each repetition. The man of science has added his voice of warning. We have been told, on the highest authority, that, upon analysis, cider is found to be perfectly useless for all purposes of nutrition. And medical evidence is not wanting to affirm that the failure of the apple-crop is a real blessing to the labourer; that the effect of such scarcity has produced the same favourable effects upon his health, as the good drainage of a parish has produced upon the health of the inhabitants GENERALLY. It would be difficult, we presume, to extend the operation of the Act against the truck system to the agricultural districts. We can, then, but urge upon the owners and occupiers of land the great importance of this subject. We can but exhort them as Christians, who are bound to give to their labourers that which is lawful and right, to set themselves resolutely against any system which tends to debase the workman, or impoverish his family. We now pass to the last of the three questions which we have undertaken to consider. We have no wish to embark upon the troubled waters of educational politics; and thus our remarks will be brief. It has been proved over and over again that ignorance is the main source of crime. Were there no other evidence, the facts and figures collected by Mr. Joseph Bentley with such disinterested industry* would prove this fact. The chief point then to be discussed, is the kind of education that should be given. Mere teaching by rote should be sedulously avoided. All such is but lost labour, as many a school-inspector can testify. Imparting information is but one, and that the least important office of the teacher. It is in mental discipline that his art truly consists. In course of years the man will forget many of the facts which he learnt as a boy. But he has not been truly educated if his capacity for receiving and using knowledge should fail. It would be well if our rural schools bore a closer relation to the farm than at present exists. As it is, the boy begins to unlearn the moment that he quits the form and desk for the plough. This would not be so had be been instructed in such matters as mechanics, the * See his very valuable work, Education as it is, ought to be, and might be.' rudiment rudiments of agricultural chemistry, the laws that regulate health, to say nothing of general lessons in the first principles of political economy, and the laws that regulate wages. These and similar subjects will be of far greater interest and infinitely more use to him than crude bald facts about the four elements,' or the sun, moon, and stars. Where it is practicable, an adult evening school should exist no less than the ordinary children's school. Education and work, theory and practice, might then go hand in hand. But if education be a hard subject, recreation is far more difficult. The old sports of Merrie England' have died out with the race of yeomen who maintained them. At the present time, sad to say, the beer-shop, or the cider-shop, is the only playground offered to our agricultural labourers. The bright fire, the sanded room, the companionship of his equals, are sources of attraction to most too great to be overcome by mere scolding and lecturing. We may, if we please, establish rival coffee-rooms on the plan proposed by Mr. Osborne. We shall be rejoiced to hear that any such have answered. We are disposed to think that we shall find it policy to learn wisdom from our ancestors, and at least endeavour to re-establish some of those healthful, mirthful, innocent games, which once graced our village greens. From want of some such amusements, our peasantry have become proverbially uncouth and awkward. The Times' newspaper of June 14th, 1856, describing the Paris Agricultural Exhibition, remarks: 'In that brilliant assembly, with the representatives of all the nations of Europe looking on, we grieve to say it, that the English labourer was the poorest-looking man among them all. The easy and independent look and bearing, and the picturesque dress of the Spanish peasant, the Hungarian shepherd, and the Swiss herdsman, contrasted painfully with the bent and slouching gait and slovenly fustian dress of the English cattle-man. . . . And thus, while England sends out the finest cattle and pigs, the smoothest-coated horses, the fleeciest sheep, she sends out, also, the most awkward and unpromising labourer.' 6 A humiliating assertion, this; yet, it must be confessed, the accusation is a true one. We think that we have partly shown how we may remove this reproach. In many things we must alter. In most things we must go back to the good old times when, as the historian tells us, every man had his definite place and duty assigned to him, and no human being was at liberty to lead at his own pleasure an unaccountable existence,-when the discipline of an army was transformed to the details of social life, which issued in a chivalrous perception of the meaning of the word duty, and in the old characteristic spirit of English loyalty.' -(Froude, History of England, vol. i. p. 13.) 'Lessons on the Phenomena of Industrial Life,' edited by the Dean of Hereford, is admirably suited for the more advanced pupils of our agricultural population. ART. ART. II.-1. Norway and its Glaciers, visited in 1851. By James D. Forbes, D.C.L., F.R.S., &c., Professor of Natural Philosophy in the University of Edinburgh. Edinburgh: A. and C. Black. 1853. 2. Forest Scenes in Norway and Sweden: being Extracts from the Journal of a Fisherman. By the Rev. Henry Newland, Rector and Vicar of Westbourne. London: Routledge and Co. 1854. 3. The Oxonian in Norway; or Notes of Excursions in that Country in 1854-55. By the Rev. Frederick Metcalfe, M.A., Fellow of Lincoln College, Oxford. 2 vols. London: Hurst and Blackett. 1856. 4. A Long Vacation Ramble in Norway and Sweden. By X. and Y. (two unknown quantities). Cambridge: Macmillan and Co. 1857. 5. Unprotected Females in Norway; or the Pleasantest Mode of travelling there. With Scandinavian Sketches from Nature. London: Routledge and Co. 1857. 6. The Norse-Folk; or a Visit to the Homes of Norway and Sweden. By Charles Loring Brace, Author of Hungary in 1851, and Home Life in Germany.' London: Bentley. 1858. 7. The Oxonian in Thellemarken; or Notes of Travel in SouthWestern Norway in the Summers of 1856-57. By the Rev. Frederick Metcalfe, M.A. 2 vols. London: Hurst and Blackett. 1858. NORWAY is becoming quite a favourite resort for tourists. Nor is this at all surprising. Linked as it is to this land by means of the Northmen, or Normans, whose influence contributed so much to develop that spirit of enterprise and nautical power characteristic of the Anglo-Saxon race, it must ever be interesting to Englishmen to visit the homes of their Viking ancestors, and to study the land that gave birth to the kings of the sea. The physical structure of Norway is peculiar, and replete with scenes of rugged grandeur and romance. There sea and mountain embrace each other, the massive shoulders of the latter rising abruptly from their ocean-bed; while the arms of the former stretch far around the bosom of the everlasting hills. In the Hardanger Fjord the mountains rise almost perpendicularly on either side to a height of three or five thousand feet, hiding the solar rays from the crater below, and giving a gloomy, almost horrific aspect to the scene. The waters rush through this rock-cleft for nearly one hundred miles, stretching out branches on every side. The whole western coast is crowded with similar scenes, while numerous rocky islands front the |