Page:Transactions of the Provincial Medical and Surgical Association, volume 4.djvu/231

 Rh pair; these are intrusted to the best hands; and an industrious young woman, capable of undertaking the sewing of these, can, in the summer, earn 6s. and in some instances 7s. per week. This sedentary in-door work is not, altogether, incompatible with the care of a small family, and is, therefore, a great assistance to the poor. Females are not often seen in the fields, performing out-door work: when they do so, their earnings are from 6d. to 8d. a day.

Fuel consists almost entirely of coal, and as this is always drawn in carts from a considerable distance, it becomes a very expensive article; the poor, excepting, perhaps, those residing near the Severn, seldom giving less than from one shilling to fourteen pence the hundred weight, a quantity which, with the greatest economy, lasts about a week during the winter months.

The new beer houses have a prejudicial effect upon the habits of the labouring classes. The labourer himself, before their establishment, could, in this district, generally obtain tolerably good beer or cider; he now sees, on every side, these houses, the resort of the idle and disorderly, and is too frequently tempted into them, where his time and money are expended, while his wife and family are neglected. "To be drunk upon the premises," which is now seen in large letters over the door of houses of this description, is rather an awkward mode of expression for such places.