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LABOURERS AND VILLAGERS.
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kept under the eye of an overseer. For a day's labour he receives, in Tehran, a sum varying from 5⅓d. to 11d., according to the season of the year, and in the country he generally receives rather more than at Tehran. In the winter he is often out of work, and in the springtime his labour is cheaply bought; but as summer advances he is more in request, and in the autumn his wages are at the highest point to which they reach. Of the sum which he daily earns he spends generally about one-half or three-fourths for his breakfast and dinner and clothing, and he lays by the rest against the winter, when he will have nothing to do; or else he sends it to his wife. The Persian labourer is, as a general rule, a married man. If he have to go forth from his native village in search of work he usually leaves his wife behind him. If his wife have children she does not go out to service, but if she be unencumbered she often takes employment in the household of some gentleman. The wife of a labouring man in Persia, although she seldom does any work in the fields, can assist her husband to some extent in earning the bread of the family. She can undertake the making, or the mending, or the washing, of clothes, and she can utilize her spare time in preparing cotton-twist and in various other ways. Her clothes, and those of her children, if she have any, are the reverse of costly; her husband wears but one suit of garments in the year; and the house-rent they pay is light. The staple of a labouring man's food is bread, which commodity is usually sold at Tehran at the rate of one man (or 6¾ lbs.) for 8 shahis, or 4d. Beef is cheap and abundant in winter, but it is not eaten at other seasons of the year. As a general rule Persian peasants eat