Page:An Encyclopædia of Cottage, Farm, and Villa Architecture and Furniture.djvu/660

 G3 COTTAGE, FARM, AND VILLA ARCKIXilCTURE. 1211 d ""
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n I I I V 34 Ft. prices of the articles of their cor.sumption ; showing that they could not exist on less than wages varyinf from 15s. to 20^. per week. This would be a most serious matter if it were true, because there is 1212 not the slightest prospect of their obtaining such wages. It is a consolation to know, practically, that a labourer, with a moderate family, not exceeding four children, rent- ing a cottage at Is. per week, and a quarter of an acre of good land at 10s. a year, and earning, on an average, by piecework and daywork, 10s. a week, can live with- out parish aid, except in case of illness or accident. I know a man who has brought up seven sons and two daugh- ters, renting a cottage at £4 per annum, and potato land of farmers at the rate of £7 per acre, for which they have not paid their landlords above 25s. at the outside ; and neither the father nor his cliildren, all of whom arc upwards of twenty years of age, have ever received a shilling from any parish. I saw this patriarch, with his seven sons, on three several occasions, give their votes for the city of Gloucester as freemen (they are now disfranchised as non-residents), and I shall not soon forget the indignation they felt at an examination by the agents of the pth er