Page:The agricultural labourer (Denton).djvu/15



These figures include shepherds and horse-keepers, but do not include the wages of bailiffs, where they exist, nor of other special employés, nor the earnings of labourers' wives and children. They include, however, beer and cider when they form a regular daily allowance in lieu of money—as is very frequently the case in the West of England—but not otherwise.

The mean weekly day-labour wages of able-bodied men throughout the whole of England may be taken at 12s. 6d.

To this must be added the additional gains by occasional piece-work, extra payments at hay-time and harvest, when double ordinary wages is frequently given, independently of the increased allowance of beer or cider. In the aggregate, the actual income derived from these employments is equal to from 1s. 6d. to 3s. a week, according to the custom of different districts. When piece-work can wholly take the place of day-labour, a labourer may earn 25 per cent. more than by the day. The total value of the beer and cider supplied to each labourer as his allowance, at hay-time and harvest, when employed in drilling and machine threshing,