Page:The English Peasant.djvu/130

 And yet the landowners and farmers of Lincolnshire met in conference in their Chamber of Agriculture, and being interrogated by the Commissioner what they thought should be done, answered, first and foremost, that it did not appear to them that the present hours of work of women and children employed in agriculture are excessive, or injurious to the physical condition of either; and that, secondly, "no restrictions should be placed on the distances to which it should be lawful for them to go to work."

It is, as I have said, now forbidden to any public gang-master to have a mixed gang. But though this may prevent positive acts of immorality, it does not prevent that demoralizing influence which always ensues when a company of young people of all ages work unrestrained by the presence of their masters. This is especially the case with girls, since it is just the roughest and most depraved of the sex who are most constantly employed in this kind of labour, and who, by force of their audacity and superior skill, naturally assume the leadership of the gang. Their coarse and lewd conversation soon corrupts the whole gang, and so the moral evil spreads. This is the kind of training the future womanhood of the district has to go through, and it can easily be foreseen what sort of homes such young persons will form. Their slovenly and slatternly cottages, full of discomfort, alienate their husbands and drive them to the beer-shop. Their ignorance of the arts of sewing and mending causes the children to go in tatters. As a farmer in Deeping Fen truly observes, "No amount of wages will make the husband better off, for the wife does not know how to use the money." In fact, a comfortable and happy home is an idea they have never been permitted to entertain, many being driven by the stress of their wretchedness to be themselves instrumental in destroying its very possibility.

Let any one look into th e Sixth Report of the medical officer of the Privy Council (1863), and he will there find a tale of horror as to some facts of social life amongst the labouring people of the fen districts. The account I refer to is Dr H. J. Hunter's report on the alarming mortality amongst infants in certain rural districts in England. And these districts are just the very ones