Page:The English Peasant.djvu/255

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IN SOUTH WARWICKSHIRE.
241

urging all farmers to pay their men the day before the local market, and against the practice of supplying men with beer at the hay and corn harvests.

ages have risen from 12s. to 14s. and 15s., so that the labourers of South Warwickshire may fairly congratulate themselves upon having already gained a great moral victory.

And thus a great agricultural revolution has commenced, the end whereof no sensible man would dare to prophesy. From Northumberland to Cornwall, from Norfolk to Hereford, one hears everywhere the tidings of rising life. The central wave is spreading, and the adjacent counties are forming Unions; and now they talk of a congress of representatives, that they may form a National Union. The heart of old England has heaved, and every member of the agricultural community throughout the country begins to feel the glow of a new life.