The Agricultural Labourer. 365 at present upon the two farms fifty-two labourers, farming about 350 acres, free of debt, and possessing as their own property all the stock and crops on the land. So far good; but when Mr. Gurdon says that the labourers have established a store-shop with a brewery,' we fear the vision is too bright to last. The success of the Assington labourers appears, judging by Mr. Gurdon's explanatory details, to have been less due to their own endeavours than to Mr. Gurdon's incessant instruction and guidance; and in this lies the difference in the value of the co-operative farm experiments at Assington, as compared with that of the Co-operative Mill at Rochdale. In the one case, the Suffolk labourers had to rely on Mr. Gurdon; in the other, the Rochdale weavers, from the very first, learnt to depend on themselves. Co-operative farming is not impracticable, but its introduction is attended with far greater difficulties than those experienced in the establishment of provision stores or manufacturing concerns. If it should succeed, it will be principally by the adoption of the course recommended by Mr. Edwin Chadwick with reference to the utilization of town sewage, the use of which would save the heavy sums now expended in the purchase of guano or dear artificial fertilizers, which, after all, are less efficacious than the material cast as useless into our fresh-water streams. The state of the labouring classes in the agricultural districts formed the staple of several papers, the old subject of cottage-accommodation being taken up by Mr. C. W. Strickland, who asserted that he was abundantly convinced that the building of decent cottages could never be made to pay as a commercial speculation by a professional builder, except possibly-but by no means certainly-by some kind of legislative protection, such as exemption of cottages from rates and taxes, or favouring them with a more rational mode of conveyance than that with which other kinds of property are handed over to their owners. This argument has been repeatedly uttered at agricultural meetings, and Lord Lievden recently expressed himself in similar language at Wellingborough; yet it is our impression that decent dwellings can be erected, not as mere commercial speculations, but as investments producing a low but certain interest for the capital embarked. As the social status of the agricultural labourer rises, as indicated in Mr. Holland's paper on 'Steam Cultivation,' he will no longer be content with the miserable hovels erected for his accommodation. Cottages more adapted to his requirements must and will be found. Experience has proved that where the landowner has improved the dwellings of those residing on his estate, he has found his reward in the development of a higher standard of character and intelligence amongst his tenantry. At present, the majority of landowners are oblivious of their duties in this respect, but a change is impending which will compel them to regard the subject with more attention. Mr. Holland stated that the class of labourers had become changed by reason of the introduction of steam-ploughs. They were no longer sluggish and unwilling as in former days, and required to be well-housed and cared for. His experience told him that those connected with steam-ploughing and machinery required and obtained good cottages, and the most powerful thing in elevating the character of working men was the providing for them superior habitations and promoting respectability in dress. By the management of steam machinery his labourers had become so altered that he had been able to shut up a public-house, the men enjoying the evening to a far greater extent in a large room provided with fire and light, where there were social enjoyments, whilst the evils of the public-house and drunkenness were far reduced among them-example, no doubt, having much do with this.' The darker side of the agricultural labour-question was brought up by the Rev. T. Hutton, rector of Stilton, who, in a paper on Agricultural Gangs,' furnished a terrible account of the state of social affairs in the Marshland districts. According to him, children of both sexes are employed at a very early age in field-work they they are taken from the school and placed in gangs of forty and fifty, under the charge of a 'ganger,' by whom they are usually hired from their parents, and let out, in such numbers as may be required, to the farmers of the district. The system is, in fact, a species of slavery productive of a vast amount of demoralization; yet the evil is not so local nor so recent in its origin as Mr. Hutton seems to assume. Mr. Edward Baines, in his 'Letters on the Manufacturing Districts,' published in 1843, quoted largely from the 'Reports of Special Assistant Poor-law Commissioners on the Employment of Women and Children in Agriculture;' according to which we learn that the results of the gang system then existing in Lincolnshire, Norfolk, and elsewhere, were exactly similar to those described as now existing by Mr. Hutton. The employment of the children in field-labour is occasioned principally by the necessity for replacing the wages squandered by the parents in drink. But for this, the innocent victims of the public-house might possess a fair chance of procuring that education of which they are now deprived. In the Education Department sundry papers relating to the deficiency of education amongst the agricultural labouring class were read by Mary E. Simpson, Rev. F. D. Legard, and others; but they were of an extremely superficial character, good so far as they went, but failing in the attempt to furnish a real and efficient remedy for the evil. This failure on their part is attributable to the common error of mistaking effects for causes. They find a deficiency of education existing amongst a certain class of the community, and set about ameliorating that deficiency, without inquiring into the real causes which tended to create the mischief they fain would remedy. They do not perceive the intimate relations subsisting between the village beershop and the neglected education of the young. In this respect they remind us of the glazier in Bastiat's 'What is Seen and What is Not Seen.' The effects of this defective moral training in early life are displayed in the rudeness and profligacy so frequently to be witnessed at a statute fair, the demoralizing tendencies of which were well described by Canon Randolph. No one, said the reverend gentleman, 'could stroll through the streets of a market town during the progress of a statute fair, and witness the public-houses opened from the lowest to the highest storey, for the promiscuous entertainment of the young of both sexes, and fail to draw the conclusion that the licence of such times was thoroughly unchristian, and sure to be attended with ruinous results.' Here, again, the mischief of the public-house system strongly forces itself upon the observer's attention. Experience proves, beyond all doubt, that it is the publicans who are the principal upholders of the statute fairs, which, according to Canon Randolph, form 'a serious obstacle to successful results from efforts now being made to improve the tone and habits of the working classes by education.' 'It was in vain,' continued he, 'that in their schools they circulated lessons of sobriety, modesty, and general good conduct, if, as soon as their scholars went forth to their active duties of life, they allowed them to be exposed, at an age when the powers of self-command are weak, to such strong temptations as these fairs present to them.' At Kettering, in Northamptonshire, and at Malton, in Yorkshire, attempts have been made with some success to open large public buildings as refreshment-rooms, minus alcoholic drinks, in opposition to the public-houses, but these efforts are simply mere makeshift expedients. Mr. Holland, M.P., thought that the evil would be mitigated by the farmer becoming a different man from what he now was, and, in some respects, Mr. Holland is right. The bucolic mind is not quite sound on the subject of temperance. There are farmers who look upon an abstainer as one unable to perform his field labours properly their men must drink or go elsewhere. Yet these employers are amongst the first to complain of the drunkenness prevalent amongst those employed by them! It is to be hoped that these things will be properly represented at the next Congress. Until that be done, it will be hopeless to Working Men and Climacteric Disease. 367 to look for any improvement in the condition-whether social, moral, or physical of the industrial classes employed in agriculture. But such evils are not confined to the agricultural districts. The papers read in the Health Department, illustrative of the special question relative to the present high rate of infant mortality, disclosed a reprehensible state of things existing in our manufacturing cities and towns. Intemperance was distinctly admitted to be one of the principal causes of the mischief complained of; the other alleged causes being early marriages, bad nursing, the use of soothing syrups and cordials, defective ventilation, and so forth. The remedies proposed, however, fell far short of the evils they were intended to meet, and Mr. Raper was correct when he stated that the evil must be counteracted by law. One great cause of infant mortality,' according to him, 'was to be found in the fact that children were suffocated by their mothers while drunk. If Government could license houses to make people drunk, who, when drunk, smothered their children, then Government could and must make laws for its remedy.' It might also have been observed that the children of those parents who partook of alcoholic liquors not unfrequently suffered from the bad quality of the milk supplied by the mother's breast. Mr. Ikin, of Leeds, affirmed that burial clubs acted as a premium on infant mortality. These clubs are invariably held at publichouses, and a large portion of the sums paid on the deaths of children is expended in drink. Dr. Shann, of York, read an interesting paper on the 'Influence of Occupation on the Life and Health of those Engaged in some of the Commoner Employments;' his observations being based on his experience in connection with York Hospital and Dispensary. He stated that his experience of the operative classes led him to the conclusion that they had climacteric disease, representing the destructive effects of unremitting physical exertion on the degenerating nervous and muscular system of organic and animal life. In these classes the period of climacteric failure was most marked between the ages of thirty-five and forty-nine, terminating about the time of life when that of the upper class commences. With regard to the classes of workmen, ten of them, namely-agricultural and other labourers, joiners, shoemakers, out and in-door servants, smiths, painters, curriers, and sawyers, would be met with in equal proportions in every town. Workers in confectionery and glass and glasshouse workmen were more special. In addition to those specified trades, there was a group of three hundred and eighty-seven persons distributed over eighty employments. The general impression borne out by experience was that before the age of fifty a considerable proportion of the operative classes had made serious advances in structural degeneration. These changes materially reduced the physical powers so as to unfit for any serious or prolonged exertion, and ere long entirely to disqualify for the ordinary business of life.' It would be pertinent to the subject were an inquiry made as to how far the premature decline of physical powers in working men is due to habits of drinking, whether 'excessive' or otherwise. To some extent this has been anticipated by the Rev. Dawson Burns, in a paper entitled Vital Statistics in Relation to the Use of Intoxicating Liquors. In this essay, Mr. Burns states that 'benefit societies and sick clubs have yielded some striking facts. In Preston, at one time, there were eight general sick clubs, and three for teetotallers only. In the former, two hundred and thirty-three out of one thousand members were annually sick; in the latter, one hundred and thirty-nine. The drinkers were sick on the average seven weeks and four days; the teetotallers, three weeks and two days. Each sick drinker received £2. 16s. 1d.; each sick teetotaller had need of only £1. 9s. 2d. Mr. J. Hawkins, M.R.C.S., of Colet Place, Commercial Road East, London, states that he attended a temperance sick benefit society in St. George's East, which numbered one hundred and fifty members, and in the course of three three years but one death occurred, this being the case of a man who had deaths occurred out of the seventy-five members.' Again:-Further, it may be inquired whether life insurance companies are of opinion that total abstinence is unfriendly to length of days? In answer to a communication from Mr. Mudge, M.R.C.S., of Bodmin, the officers of some of the principal companies affirmed that the practice of abstinence would certainly not be regarded as an unfavourable element in the case of any applicant for insurance, and it is well known that some offices manifest peculiar solicitude to extend their business among those who, like Jonadab's descendants, drink no wine. But the most satisfactory evidence yet afforded on this question is found in the statistics of the United Kingdom Temperance and General Provident Institution, established at the close of 1840. In the first eight years of its existence its annual rate of mortality was six per thousand, while the annual rate of mortality for the general population was thirteen per thousand; among lives in other offices eleven, and in friendly societies ten, so that the temperance average, though this office contained several members above seventy years of age, was only equal to that of rural labourers at the age of thirty-five, or of persons at the age of fifteen, the most favourable period of life.' These facts show, beyond all cavil, that it is impossible to determine the exact influence exercised by any trade or occupation upon those engaged in it, unless their habits, whether as abstainers, moderate drinkers, or drunkards, be also taken into consideration. It is the absence of these qualifying details which renders the generality of medical statistics so defective and unreliable. The questions relating to the treatment of criminals were fully discussed; many papers of importance were contributed, but the subject of transportation to Western Australia scarcely attracted any notice. Considering how the differences of opinion respecting the working of that system threatened at one time to imperil the relations subsisting between the mother country and colonies at the antipodes, it appears strange that such should have been the case. The absence of Mr. Torrens, who had been compelled to revisit Australia, explains the otherwise inexplicable silence on the subject. The recent decision of the Government with respect to the cessation of transportation to Australia is likely to be attended with important social results. able to shoot our criminals like rubbish upon colonial soil, we shall be No longer compelled to study the various causes which tend to produce and foster crime, so that those causes may in future be prevented. This will tend to impart an additional importance to the future proceedings of the association in connection with the questions relating to crime and criminals, and will also occasion greater attention, on the part of the public, to the fact that intemperance constitutes one of the principal feeders of crime. Another question in which the labours of the association have proved of much service is that of town sewage. The papers read on this subject by Mr. Rawlinson and others, and the remarks made thereupon by Lord. R. Montague, have greatly facilitated the attempts now being made to bring the matter to a practical issue. streams should cease to be contaminated by the contents of our sewers, and It is highly necessary that our fresh-water the My Brother's Execution. 369 the time seems rapidly approaching when the evil will be prohibited by law. To such a result the labours of the association will have materially contributed, forming another instance of its utility when its efforts are properly directed. The questions of taxation, laws of maritime warfare, working class investments, penny banks, working men's clubs, &c., each came in for a full share of notice. Mr. John Noble's paper on 'Free Trade and Direct Taxation' was followed by a long and exciting discussion, in which several of the leading members of the Financial Reform Association took active parts. At present public opinion has yet to be formed in favour of direct taxation. Still, much good must inevitably arise from the ventilation of the question. The next Congress is appointed to be held in Sheffield, in which case we may expect that some of the deficiencies experienced at the York meeting will be avoided, and the association be enabled to approach more closely towards that ideal which its founders dreamt of when they ushered it into being. ART. VI.-MY BROTHER'S EXECUTION. I CAN'T remember the time when I did not love Harry. Thirty years ago, when my mother sent me out with him to play on the moor (he was then a little bright-eyed fellow, two years old, and I scarcely seven), I would gladly undertake the charge, because I so dearly loved his sunny face and innocent laughter. And oh what happy days those were! We lived near a colliery, at which my father was engine-man. The place was black and smoky, and dirty enough, but we two scrambled about, taking care not to fall into the old pits that had been worked for coal long years before. We picked the few blackberries in autumn time, from the low prickly stunted bushes that managed somehow to live thereabouts, and in the spring we culled the smutty daisies and buttercups that did their best to look like country flowers. Our cottage was comfortably furnished. My father was a steady, industrious man, fond of his home and his book, though rather stern in temper to his children. My mother worked hard, and made us up many a smart frock, and trimmed many a gay hat, having some little knowledge of dressmaking and millinery acquired in her girlish days; and it was her especial delight to dress Harry smartly, and the little fellow's handsome face, siniling from out its adornments, amply repaid her trouble. We were the only two left of six children, and though I was expected to nurse and serve, and help to spoil, my darling little brother, yet I never experienced any want of affection from my parents towards myself. Harry and I went regularly to the colliery school. He was naturally quick and bright, and made rapid and really wonderful progress there. His schoolmaster and his parents were alike proud of him, but none of them worshipped that child as I, his elder and stupid brother, did. He was to me the sweet child-hero of every boyish dream, supplying my imagination with constant food as I thought of his glorious future, and pictured the heights to which he might aspire. I can see our neat and comfortable home now, as I look back into the past. My mother, good soul, mending, or making, for her husband or children; my father resting in his easy chair, a luxury but just afforded in the cottage; myself employed in making a boat, or whistle, or top for Harry; and Harry, seated between his father and mother, on the opposite side of the table, reading the newspaper to my father, in well modulated tones and peculiarly expressive voice. I see him now. His brown wavy hair, held back over his open brow, with boyish impatience, in one hand; his other extended on the table; his colour heightened; his eye bright; his whole countenance glowing and radiant. No wonder, thought I, every time I looked at him, that the neighbours call him that handsome boy,' and 'a gentleman's son he looks every inch of him.' I went on thinking, and yet, dear Harry, he |