mean, I can perhaps show that inferior work, low wages, and excess of drink, are attended by a greater amount of pauperism than belongs to districts where better labour, higher wages, and less beer prevail, by quoting from Mr. Purdy the result of figures he has given in his paper published in the Journal of the Statistical Society (vol xxiv., p. 346), which prove that whereas, in an example district in Dorset and Wilts, where the weekly wages were 9s. 6d., the rate of relief to the poor was 8s. 2d. per head on the population, in a similar district in Cumberland and Northumberland, where the weekly wages were 14s. 6d., the rate of relief was only 5s. 5d.
Thus far I have spoken of those means of improving the condition of the agricultural labourer which will depend on himself and the force of education gained at school and on the farm. There are other means, however, by which the higher and middle classes in rural parishes may render material aid while the seeds of education are taking root. I have said may render aid, because all Englishmen resist compulsion; but I feel those words are hardly strong enough when applied to the objects to which I am about to refer. Public opinion will, in fact, force their adoption in all places where its influence can be felt.
I refer to four principal objects; First, to a more general substitution of good cottages for bad ones—cottages which will secure health and comfort in the ordinary living department, and provide separate bedrooms for the parents and children of different sexes, so as to secure comfort and decency, which have hitherto been incompatible with the dwellings of the farm labourer. These advantages may be gained not only by building new cottages, but by alterations of and
