Fx) PIOTUEE OF BUBAL LIFE IN SUSSEX. - 469

"ceeding eight shillings a week. I am employing an old my
"an nearly seventy, and his son about twenty-two, and his Zr. 43.
"ephew about nineteen, at digging and removing some
fences, pay the two former nine shillings a week and the
last eight shillings, and I am giving a shilling a week
More than anybody else is paying. What surprises me
S to observe how well the poor fellows work, and how
long they last. The South Down air, in the absence of South
Dow mutton, has something to do with the healthiness of
hese people, I dare say. The labourers have generally a
garden, and an allotment of a quarter of an acre; for the
latter they pay three and ninepence a year rent. We are
2 the midst, of woods, and on the borders of common land,
0 that fuel is cheap. All the poor have a right to cat turf
°0 the common for their firing, which costs two shillings
ind threepence per thousand. The labourers who live in
ny Cottages have pigs in their sties, but 1 believe it is not
5 Universally, I have satisfied myself that, however badly
*F the labourers may be at present, their condition was
Worse in the time of high-priced corn. In 1847, when
breag was double its present price, the wages of the farm
labourers were nob raised more than two to three shillings
8 Week, At that time a man with a family spent all he
®arned for bread, and still had not enough to sustain his
household. T have it both from the labourers themselves
ad the millers from whom they buy their flour, that they
fan go deeply in debt for food during the high prices of 1847,
that they have scarcely been able in some cases up to the
Present to pay off their score. The class Jeeling amongst
*he agricultural labourers is in favour of a cheap loaf. They
lare pot say much about it openly, but their instincts are
Serving them in the absence of economical knowledge, and
they are unanimously against Chowler and the Protectionists.
I can hardly pretend that in this world’s-end spot we can