ideal; wages are still much too low; the labourer is still too far divided from the land which he cultivates. But in both those directions something has been gained. Wages have certainly increased considerably within the memory of the writer. Practically every labourer has a garden attached to his cottage, and many have allotments. The lowness of wages is, to some extent, counterbalanced by the cheapness of cottage accommodation, and there is no doubt that this accommodation is immeasurably better than that of a hundred years ago. The labourer is no longer clothed, fed, and housed by the parish. He does all this for himself out of his wages, and the writer submits that this is the true line of social progress rather than the condonation of inadequate wages by poor relief under whatever name it be disguised. The history of poor relief in this village is identical with that in hundreds of English villages. What, then, is the cause of the change? Can there be any doubt that it is due to the cutting off, in 1834, of the endowment of pauperism? Every practical man knows that, even to-day, it would be easy to return to the old conditions. Average human nature is not proof against the common desire to live without labour, to its own eventual ruin, body and soul. The foregoing sketch has been made because the issues are simple, and the facts—at least to one who knows the village and the people—as vivid as if they happened yesterday. Let any one who will make a similar study with regard to his own village, and form his own conclusions.
