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most part, have to sleep under the trees of the farms on which they work.” (l. c., p. 135.) The system
of “open” and “closed” villages obtains in all the Midland counties and throughout the East of
England.
104
“The employer ... is ... directly or indirectly securing to himself the profit on a man employed at
10s. a week, and receiving from this poor hind £4 or £5 annual rent for houses not worth £20 in a
really free market, but maintained at their artificial value by the power of the owner to say ‘Use my
house, or go seek a hiring elsewhere without a character from me....’ Does a man wish to better
himself, to go as a plate-layer on the railway, or to begin quarry-work, the same power is ready with
‘Work for me at this low rate of wages or begone at a week’s notice; take your pig with you, and get
what you can for the potatoes growing in your garden.’ Should his interest appear to be better served
by it, an enhanced rent is sometimes preferred in these cases by the owner (i.e., the farmer) as the
penalty for leaving his service.” (Dr. Hunter, l. c., p. 132.)
105
“New married couples are no edifying study for grown-up brothers and sisters: and though
instances must not be recorded, sufficient data are remembered to warrant the remark, that great
depression and sometimes death are the lot of the female participator in the offence of incest.” (Dr.
Hunter, l. c., p. 137.) A member of the rural police who had for many years been a detective in the
worst quarters of London, says of the girls of his village: “their boldness and shamelessness I never
saw equalled during some years of police life and detective duty in the worst parts of London .... They
live like pigs, great boys and girls, mothers and fathers, all sleeping in one room, in many instances.”
(“Child. Empl. Com. Sixth Report, 1867,” p. 77 sq. 155.)
106
“Public Health. Seventh Report, 1865,” pp. 9, 14 passim.
107
“The heaven-born employment of the hind gives dignity even to his position. He is not a slave, but
a soldier of peace, and deserves his place in married men’s quarters to be provided by the landlord,
who has claimed a power of enforced labour similar to that the country demands of the soldier. He no
more receives market-price for his work than does the soldier. Like the soldier he is caught young,
ignorant, knowing only his own trade, and his own locality. Early marriage and the operation of the
various laws of settlement affect the one as enlistment and the Mutiny Act affect the other.” (Dr.
Hunter, l. c., p. 132.) Sometimes an exceptionally soft-hearted landlord relents as the solitude he has
created. “It is a melancholy thing to stand alone in one’s country,” said Lord Leicester, when
complimented on the completion of Hookham. “I look around and not a house is to be seen but mine. I
am the giant of Giant Castle, and have eat up all my neighbours.”
108
A similar movement is seen during the last ten years in France; in proportion as capitalist
production there takes possession of agriculture, it drives the “surplus” agricultural population into the
towns. Here also we find deterioration in the housing and other conditions at the source of the surplus
population. On the special “prolétariat foncier,” to which this system of parcelling out the land has
given rise, see, among others, the work of Colins, already quoted, and Karl Marx “Der Achtzehnte
Brumaire des Louis Bonaparte.” 2nd edition. Hamburg, 1869, pp. 56, &c. In 1846, the town
population in France was represented by 24.42, the agricultural by 75.58; in 1861, the town by 28.86,
the agricultural by 71.14 per cent. During the last 5 years, the diminution of the agricultural
percentage of the population has been yet more marked. As early as 1846, Pierre Dupont in his
“Ouvriers” sang:
Mal vêtus, logés dans des trous,
Sous les combles, dans les décombres,
Nous vivons avec les hiboux
Et les larrons, amis des ombres.
[Badly clothed, living in holes, under the eaves, in the ruins, with the owls and the thieves,
companions of the shadows]
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109
“Sixth and last Report of the Children’s Employment Commission,” published at the end of March,
1867. It deals solely with the agricultural gang-system.
110
“Child. Emp. Comm., VI. Report." Evidence 173, p. 37.
111
Some gang-masters, however, have worked themselves up to the position of farmers of 500 acres,
or proprietors of whole rows of houses.
112
“Half the girls of Ludford have been ruined by going out” (in gangs). l. c., p. 6, § 32.
113
“They (gangs) have greatly increased of late years. In some places they are said to have been
introduced at comparatively late dates; in others where gangs ... have been known for many years ...
more and younger children are employed in them.” (l. c., p. 79, § 174).
114
“Small farmers never employ gangs.” “It is not on poor land, but on land which affords rent of
from 40 to 50 shillings, that women and children are employed in the greatest numbers.” (l. c., pp. 17,
14.)
115
To one of these gentlemen the taste of his rent was so grateful that he indignantly declared to the
Commission of Inquiry that the whole hubbub was only due to the name of the system. If instead of
“gang” it were called “the Agricultural Juvenile Industrial Self-supporting Association,” everything
would be all right.
116
“Gang work is cheaper than other work; that is why they are employed,” says a former gang-master
(l. c., p. 17, § 14 )."The gang-system is decidedly the cheapest for the farmer, and decidedly the worst
for the children,” says a farmer (l. c., p. 16, § 3.)
117
“Undoubtedly much of the work now done by children in gangs used to be done by men and
women. More men are out of work now where children and women are employed than formerly.” (l.
c., p. 43, n. 202.) On the other hand, “the labour question in some agricultural districts, particularly the
arable, is becoming so serious in consequence of emigration, and the facility afforded by railways for
getting to large towns that I (the “I” is the steward of a great lord) think the services of children are
most indispensable,” (l. c., p. 80, n. 180.) For the “labour question” in English agricultural districts,
differently from the rest of the civilised world, means the landlords’ and farmers’ question, viz., how
is it possible, despite an always increasing exodus of the agricultural folk, to keep up a sufficient
relative surplus population in the country, and by means of it keep the wages of the agricultural
labourer at a minimum?
118
The “Public Health Report,” where in dealing with the subject of children’s mortality, the gang-
system is treated in passing, remains unknown to the press, and, therefore, to the English public. On
the other hand, the last report of the “Child. Empl. Comm.” afforded the press sensational copy always
welcome. Whilst the Liberal press asked how the fine gentlemen and ladies, and the well-paid clergy
of the State Church, with whom Lincolnshire swarms, could allow such a system to arise on their
estates, under their very eyes, they who send out expressly missions to the Antipodes, “for the
improvement of the morals of South Sea Islanders” — the more refined press confined itself to
reflections on the coarse degradation of the agricultural population who are capable of selling their
children into such slavery! Under the accursed conditions to which these “delicate” people condemn
the agricultural labourer, it would not be surprising if he ate his own children. What is really
wonderful is the healthy integrity of character, he has, in great part, retained. The official reports
prove that the parents, even in the gang districts, loathe the gang-system. “There is much in the
evidence that shows that the parents of the children would, in many instances, be glad to be aided by
the requirements of a legal obligation, to resist the pressure and the temptations to which they are
often subject. They are liable to be urged, at times by the parish officers, at times by employers, under
threats of being themselves discharged, to be taken to work at an age when ... school attendance ...
would be manifestly to their greater advantage.... All that time and strength wasted; all the suffering