Page:The English Peasant.djvu/139

 Just now we had a description of a chimney corner of a Dorset cottage in the old time, and the flitches of bacon suggested good fare; we have all heard how different it is in the present day. Here is an account of how the family [of an ordinary Dorset labourer lives, given by the good wife, and reported by the Commissioner, Mr Stanhope:—

"We have brought up ten children and have never had sixpence from the parish. My husband has 8s. and his cottage and garden. We mayn't keep a pig, but instead of this master gives us 6d. a week for the wash. Sometimes, if anything happens"—ominous expression, suggesting how infinitely less considerate are the bonds which unite modern Christian society to those which Moses imposed on the Hebrews 3000 years ago—"master's glad to sell us some of the meat. In the last three years we have got perhaps seven or eight bits in this way. We have bought a bit at Christmas, when the children are here. We buy a little pig-meat; we use it with the potatoes. At harvest we have some cheese, but not at any other time. We don't often get potatoes. When we had ten at home, we could not live on the bread we could buy. We'd get a little rice if the potatoes wasn't good. My children never used to drink much tea. I'd mix them a little broth (bread, hot water, pepper, and salt). At harvest and hay time we get money to buy cider."

Another woman, the wife of a shepherd, who had lived at Blandford twenty-seven or twenty-eight years, stated that she had had twelve children, seven of whom were living at home with them then. They lived on potatoes, bread, and pig-meat, but often sat down to dry bread. They never had a bit of milk. They had learned to drink cocoa at harvest, which is doubtless a great improvement on cider. The husband had 10s. a week, and a house to live in, because he worked on Sundays. They had a piece of potato ground near the house, but, as she pathetically observed, "'taters, 'taters, every year they don't turn out very much." They bought their own firewood, but had to draw it themselves. Sometimes their wood will cost them £2 for the winter. At one time they only had two bedrooms, and when all the family were young, thirteen or fourteen persons would be sleeping in them.