free to "get a drink" at any time without being thought the worse of by
their neighbours; yet they, too, for the most part, are of good and
sober character enough to prove that the village public-house cannot be
so utterly given up to evil as might be supposed from the horrified talk
of refined people. Not many men in this parish would tolerate a place in
which they could do nothing but get drunk. It is for something else that
they go to the Fox or the Happy Home. The drinking is but a pleasant
incident. They despise the fellow who merely goes in to have his
unsociable glass and be off again, as heartily as they dislike the
habitual soaker who brings their entertainment into disfavour; and they
themselves keep a rough sort of order--or they increase disorder in
trying to quell it--rather than that the landlord should interfere. That
loud harsh talk which one hears as one passes the public-house of an
evening is not what the hyper-sensitive suppose. It does not betoken
drunkenness so much as uncouth manners--the manners of neglected men
who spend their lives at severe physical labour, and want a little
relaxation in the evening. So far as I have seen, the usual conversation
in the taproom of a country public-house is a lazy and innocent
interchange of remarks, which wander aimlessly from one subject to
another, because nobody wants to bother his head with thinking; or else
it is a vehement discussion, in which dogmatic assertion does duty for
argument and loudness for force. In either case it rests and stimulates
the tired men, while the drink refreshes their throats, and it has no
more necessary impropriety than the drawing-room talk of the well-to-do.
In this intercourse men who do not read the papers get an inkling of the
news of the day, those who have no books come into contact with other
minds, opinions are aired, the human craving for fun gets a little
exercise; and for topics of talk, instead of those which occupy moneyed
people, who know about the theatre or the Church, or foreign travel, or
golf, or the state of the poor, or the depreciation of Consols, the
labourers have their gardens, and the harvest, and the horses they
drive. They talk about their employers, and their work, and their wages;
they dispute about county cricket or exchange notes about blight, or new
buildings, or the latest public sensation; and all this in endless
detail, endlessly interesting to them. So, utterly unaided by arts or
any contrivances for amusement, they make entertainment for themselves.
That they must make it in kindly temper, too, is obvious; for who would
take part in it to be usually annoyed? And it may well be conceived that
in an existence so empty of other pleasures, the pleasures to be derived
from company are held precious. The scheme of living would be very
desolate without that consolation, would grow very illiberal and sombre.
But the public-houses at least do something to prevent this, and in
clinging to them the villagers have clung to something which they need
and cannot get elsewhere. It is idle to pretend that the "Institute"
which was started a few years ago provides a satisfactory alternative.
Controlled by people of another class, whose "respectability" is
irksome, and open only to members and never to women, the Institute does
not lend itself to the easy intercourse which tired men enjoy at the
public-house. Its billiard-table is not for their heavy hands, used to
the pick-axe and shovel; its card games interrupt their talk; its
newspapers remind them that they cannot read very well, and suggest a
mode of life which they are unable to share.
These reasons, I believe, prevail to keep the labouring men from
patronizing the Institute more even than does its strictly teetotal
policy. Or perhaps I should say, rather, that while they dislike going
without their beer, they object more strongly still to the principle on
which it is forbidden in the Institute. For that principle is nothing
more or less than a tacit arraignment of their own point of view. It
imputes evil propensities to them; it directly challenges the truth of
an idea which not only have they never doubted, but which their own
experience seems to them to confirm. The day-labourer really knows
nothing to take the place of beer. A man who has been shovelling in a
gravel-pit, or carrying bricks up a ladder, or hoeing in the fields, or
carting coal, for ten hours in the day, and has, perhaps, walked six or
seven miles to do it, acquires a form of thirst which no other drink he
can buy will touch so coolly. Of alternatives, milk fails utterly;
"minerals" are worse than unsatisfactory; tea, to serve the purpose at
all, must be taken very hot, and then it produces uncomfortable sweat,
besides involving the expense of a fire for its preparation. There
remains cold water. But cold water in copious draughts has its
drawbacks, even if it can be obtained, and that is assuming too much. In
this parish, at any rate, good water was, until quite lately, a scarce
commodity, and nobody cared to drink the stagnant stuff out of the tanks
or water-butts which supplied most of the cottages. In short, prudence
itself has seemed to recommend beer as the one drink for tired men. In
their view it is the safest, and the most easily obtained, and, when
obtained, it affords the most refreshment. Thus much their own
experience has taught the villagers.
And they have the tradition of long generations to support them in their
taste. As far back as they can remember, the strongest and ablest men,
whose virtues they still recall and admire, renewed their strength with
beer daily. Not labourers alone, but farmers and other employers too,
whose health and prosperity were a sufficient justification of their
habits, were wont to begin their morning with a glass of beer, which
they took, not as a stimulant, but as a food; and the belief in it as a
food was so convinced that a man denied his beer by doctor's orders was
hardly to be persuaded that he was not being starved of due nourishment.
Such was the esteem in which beer was held twenty years ago, nor has the
belief been uprooted yet. Indeed, an opinion so sanctioned to a man, by
the approval of his own father and grandfather and all the worthies he
can remember, does not immediately become false to him just because it
is condemned by strangers who do not know him, and who, with all their
temperance, seem to him a delicate and feeble folk. He prefers his own
standard of good and evil, and in sitting down to his glass he has no
doubt that he is following a sensible old fashion, modestly trying to
be, not a fine gentleman, but a sturdy Englishman.
On much the same principle the public-house as a place of resort is
justified to the villager. I have already shown how it serves him for
entertainment instead of newspaper, or book, or theatre; and here,
again, he has a long-standing country tradition to support him. In spite
of reformers on the one hand, and on the other hand that tendency of
"the trade," which is spoiling the public-house as a place of
comfortable rest by frowning upon customers who stay too long and drink
too little--in spite of these discouragements, the villagers still
cannot believe that what was good enough for their fathers is not good
enough for themselves. It might not be equally good if they wished to be
"superior persons," but for the modest needs of people like themselves
they think it should serve. So they go to the public-house just as their
fathers did, content to miss the approval of the cultured, so long as
they can do as well as those worthies. Of course, if they ever analyzed
their impressions, they must often go home discerning that they had been
disappointed; that the company had been dull and the comfort small; that
they had got less conviviality than they wanted, and more of the drink
that should have been only its excuse; but as they are never
introspective, so the disappointment goes unnoticed, and leads to no
disillusionment.
VI
WAYS AND MEANS
Before going farther I must try to give some account of the ways and
means of the villagers, although, obviously, in a population so
heterogeneous, nothing short of a scientific survey on the lines pursued
by Sir Charles Booth or Mr. Rowntree could be of much value in this
direction. The observations to be offered here pretend to no such
authority. They have been collected at random, and subjected to no
tests, and they refer almost exclusively to the "unskilled" labouring
people.
During twenty years there have not been many fluctuations in the price
of a day's labour in the parish, but probably on the whole there has
been a slight increase. The increase, however, is very uncertain. While
the South African War was in progress, and afterwards when Bordon Camp
was building, eight miles away, labour did indeed seem to profit. But
then came the inevitable trade depression, work grew scarce, and by the
summer of 1909 wages had dropped to something less than they had been
before the war. I heard, for instance, of a man--one of the most capable
in the district--who was glad that summer to go haymaking at half a
crown a day. And yet two or three years earlier he had certainly been
earning from fourpence halfpenny to fivepence an hour, or, say, from
three and sixpence to four shillings for a day's work. In 1909 the
low-water mark was reached; the following spring saw a slight revival,
and at present the average may be put at three shillings. For this sum a
fairly good man can be got to do an ordinary day's work of nine hours in
the vegetable-garden or at any odd job.
The builders' labourers are rather better paid--if their employment were
not so intermittent--with an average of from fourpence halfpenny to
fivepence an hour. Carters, too, and vanmen employed by coal-merchants,
builders, and other tradesmen in the town, are comparatively well off
with constant work at eighteen or twenty shillings a week. The men in
the gravel-pits--but that industry is rapidly declining as one after
another the pits are worked out--can earn perhaps five shillings a day
if at piece-work, or about three and sixpence on ordinary terms. From
this sum a deduction must be made for tools, which the men provide and
keep in repair themselves. It is rather a heavy item. The picks
frequently need repointing, and a blacksmith can hardly do this for less
than twopence the point. The gravel-work, too, is very irregular. In
snow or heavy rain it has to stop, and in frost it is difficult. More
than once during the winter of 1908-09, it being a time of great
distress, gravel-pit workers came to me with some of those worked
flints--the big paleoliths of the river-gravel--which they had found and
saved up, but now desired to sell, in order to raise money for pointing
their pickaxes. I have wondered sometimes if the savages who shaped
those flints had ever looked out upon life so anxiously as these
neighbours of mine, whose iron tools were so strangely receiving this
prehistoric help.
At one time upwards of forty men in the parish had more or loss constant
work on one of the "ballast-trains" which the South-Western Railway kept
on the line for repairing the permanent way. The work, usually done at
night and on Sundays, brought them in from eighteen to twenty-four
shillings a week, according to the hours they made. I do not know how
many of our men are employed on the railway now, but they are certainly
fewer. Some years ago--it was when the great trade depression had
already hit the parish badly, and dozens of men were out of work
here--the railway-company suddenly stopped this train, and consternation
spread through the village at the prospect of forty more being added to
the numbers of its unemployed.
Reviewing the figures, and making allowance for short time due to bad
weather, public holidays, sickness, and so on, it may be estimated that
even when trade is good the average weekly wage earned by one of the
village men at his recognized work is something under seventeen
shillings. This, however, does not constitute quite the whole income of
the family. In most cases the man's wages are supplemented by small and
uncertain sums derived from the work of women and children, and from odd
jobs done in the evenings, and from extra earnings in particular
seasons.
Field-work still employs a few women, although every year their numbers
decrease. It is miserably paid at a shilling a day, or in some cases on
piece-work terms which hardly work out at a higher figure. Piecework,
for instance, was customary in the hop-gardens (now rapidly
disappearing), where the women cut the bines and "tied" or "trained" the
hops at so much per acre, providing their own rushes for the tying. At
haymaking and at harvesting there is work for women; and again in the
hop-gardens, when the picking is over, women are useful at clearing up
the bines. They can earn money, too, at trimming swedes, picking up
newly-dug potatoes, and so on; but when all is said, there are not many
of them who can find work to do in the fields all the year round. At the
best, bad weather often interrupts them, and the stress and hardships of
the work, not to mention other drawbacks, make the small earnings from
it a doubtful blessing.
A considerable number of women formerly eked out the family income by
taking in washing for people in the town. Several properly equipped
laundries have of late years greatly reduced this employment, but it
still occupies a few. The difficulties of carrying it on are
considerable, apart from the discomforts of it in a small cottage.
Unless a woman has a donkey and cart, it is hard for her to get the
washing from her customers' homes and carry it back again. Of the amount
that can be earned at the work by a married woman, with husband and
children to do for, I have no knowledge.
Charwomen, more in demand than ever as the residential character of the
place grows more pronounced, earn latterly as much as two shillings a
day, besides at least one substantial meal. The meal is a consideration,
and obviously good for the women. In bad times, when the men and even
the children go rather hungry, it often happens that the mother of the
family is able to keep her strength up, thanks to the tolerable food she
gets three or four days a week in the houses where she goes scrubbing
and cleaning.
A few women--so few that they really need not be mentioned--earn a
little at needlework, two or three of them having a small dressmaking
connection amongst their cottage neighbours and with servant-girls. It
will be realized that the prices which such clients can afford to pay
are pitifully small.
In one or other of these ways most of the labouring class women do
something to add to the earnings of their husbands, so that in
prosperous times the family income may approach twenty-four shillings a
week. Yet the average must be below that sum. The woman's work is very
irregular, and just when her few shillings would be most
useful--namely, when she has a baby or little children to care for--of
course her employment stops. If not, it is unprofitable in the end; for,
involving as it does some neglect of the children, as well as of the
woman's own health, it leads to sickness and expenses which may
impoverish the whole family for years.
With regard to the minor sources of income, I have often wondered at the
eagerness of the average labourer to earn an odd shilling, and at the
amount of work he will do for it, after his proper day's work is over. I
know several men who frequently add two or three shillings to their
week's money in this way. To give an instance of how they go on, one
evening recently I was unexpectedly wanting to send a heavy parcel into
the town. Going out to seek somebody who would take it, I chanced upon a
man--very well known to me--who was at work just within the hedge of a
villa garden, where he was erecting on a pole a notice-board announcing
a "sale of work" shortly to be held. He had obviously nearly done, so I
proposed my errand to him. Yes; he would go as soon as he had finished
what he was doing. Then, perceiving that he looked tired, I commented on
the fact. He smiled. "I bin mowin' all day over there at ...," and he
mentioned a farm two or three miles distant. Still, he could go with my
parcel. This was at about seven o'clock in the evening, and would mean a
two-mile walk for him. The very next evening, when it was raining, I
saw him in the churchyard digging a grave. "Haven't been mowing to-day,
have you?" "Yes," he said cheerily. Mowing is, perhaps, the most
fatiguing work a man can do, but fatigue was nothing to this man where a
few shillings could be earned. His ordinary wages, I believe, are
eighteen shillings a week, but during last winter he was out of work for
six or eight weeks.
I have known this man, and others also, to make now and then quite a
little harvest, amounting to several pounds, at the unsavoury work of
cleaning out cess-pits. One man, indeed--a farm-labourer by day--had for
a time a sort of trade connection in the parish for this employment, and
would add the labour of two or three nights a week to that of his days;
but, of course, he could not keep it up for long. It is highly-paid
work, as it ought to be; but the ten shillings or so that a man may earn
at it four or five times a year come rather as a welcome windfall than
as a part of income upon which he can rely.
The seasonal employments are disappearing from the neighbourhood, as
agriculture gives place to the residential interests. Hop-picking used
to be the most notable of them, and even now, spite of the
much-diminished acreage under hops, it is found necessary at the schools
to defer the long holiday until September, because it would be
impossible to get the children to school while the hops are being
picked. For all the family goes into the gardens--all, that is to say,
who have no constant work. The season now lasts some three weeks, during
which a family may earn anything from two to four pounds. At this season
a few of the more experienced and trustworthy men--my friend who mows,
and digs graves, and runs errands is one of them--do better in the
hop-kilns at "drying" than in the gardens. Theirs is an anxious, a
responsible, and almost a sleepless duty. The pay for it, when I last
heard, was two guineas a week, and--pleasant survival from an older mode
of employment--the prudent hop-grower gives his dryers a pound at
Christmas as a sort of retaining-fee. It is to be observed that failure
of the crop is too frequent an occurrence. In years when there are no
hops, the people feel the want of their extra money all the following
winter.
Another custom, as it is all but extinct, needs only a passing mention
now. No longer do large gangs of our labourers--with some of their
womenfolk, perhaps--troop off "down into Sussex" for the August
harvesting there, and for the hoeing that follows it; and no longer is
the village enriched by the gold they used to bring back. When July is
ending, perhaps two or three men, whether enticed by some dream of old
harvesting joys in sight of the sea, or driven by want at home, may
stray off for a few weeks; but I do not hear that their adventure is
ever so prosperous nowadays as to induce others to follow suit.
Where the income of a family from the united efforts of the father and
mother is still so small, every shilling that can be added to it is
precious, and, consequently, the children have to begin earning as early
as they may. Hence there is not much lingering at school, after the
minimum age for leaving has been reached. Nay, some little boys, and
here and there a little girl, will make from a shilling to half a crown
a week at carrying out milk or newspapers before morning school begins,
so that they go to their lessons with the first freshness taken off them
by three or four miles of burdened walking. In view of the wear and tear
of shoe-leather, even those parents who countenance the practice are
doubtful of its economy. Still, a few of them encourage it; and though,
if spread out amongst the families, these pitiful little earnings could
hardly make a perceptible difference to the average income. I mention
them here in order to leave no source of income unnoticed. When
school-days are over, the family begins to benefit from the children's
work. At fourteen years old, few of the boys are put to trades, but most
of them get something to do in the town, where there is a great demand
for errand-boys. Their wages start at about four shillings a week,
increasing in a few years to as much as seven or eight. Then, at
seventeen years old or so, the untrained youths begin to compete in the
labour market with the men, taking too early, and at too small wages, to
the driving of carts or even to work in the gravel-pits. The amount of
help that these fellows then contribute towards the family expenses out
of their twelve or fourteen shillings a week depends upon the parents,
but it is something if they merely keep themselves; and I believe,
though I do not certainly know, that it is customary for them to pay a
few shillings for their lodging at least.
For girls leaving school there is no difficulty in finding, as they say,
"a little place" for a start in domestic service; for even the cheaper
villas which have sprung up around the town generally need their cheap
drudges. Hence, at an earlier age than the boys, the girls are taken off
their parents' hands and become self-supporting. True, it is long before
they can earn much more in money than suffices for their own needs in
clothes and boots--they cannot send many shillings home to their
mothers; but no doubt a family may be found here and there enriched to
the extent of a pound or two a year by the labour of the girls.
Putting the various items together, it might seem that in favourable
circumstances there would be some twenty-three or twenty-four shillings
a week for a family to live on all the year round. But it must be
remembered, first, that the circumstances seldom remain favourable for
many months together; and, second, that the greater number of families
have to do without those small supplementary sums provided by the work
of children, or by odd jobs, or by the good wages of hop-drying, and so
forth. Nor is this the only deduction to be made. As I have already
explained, in the cases where money is most needed--namely, where there
is a family of little children--the mother cannot go out to work, and
the income is reduced to the bare amount earned by the father alone. And
these cases are very plentiful, while, on the contrary, those in which
the best conditions prevail are very scarce. Taking the village all
through, and balancing bad times against good ones, I question if the
income of the labouring class families averages twenty shillings a week;
indeed, I should be greatly surprised to learn that it amounted to so
much. In very many instances eighteen shillings or even less would be
the more correct estimate.
One other item remains to be recognized, although its value is too
variable to be computed with any exactness in money and added to the sum
of an average week's income. What is the worth to a labourer of the
crops he grows in his garden? It depends, obviously, on the man's skill,
and the size of the garden, and the clemency of the seasons--matters,
all of them, in which any attempt at generalization must be received
with suspicion. All that can be said with certainty is that most of the
cottages in the valley have gardens, and that most of the cottagers are
diligent to cultivate them. But when the circumstances are considered,
it will be plain that the value of the produce must not be put very
high. The amount of ground that can be worked in the spring and summer
evenings is, after all, not much; it is but little manure that can be
bought out of a total money-income of eighteen shillings a week; and
even good seed is, for the same reason, seldom obtained. The return for
the labour expended, therefore, is seldom equal to what it should be,
and we may surmise that he is a fortunate man, or an unusually
industrious one, who can make his gardening worth more than two
shillings a week to him in food. There must be many cottages in the
valley where the yield of the garden is scarcely half that value.
To complete the picture of the people's ways and means, it ought next to
be shown how the money income is spent by an average family. To do that,
however, would be beyond my power, even if it were possible to determine
what an "average family" is. I know, of course, that rent takes from
three and sixpence a week for the poorest hovels to six shillings for
the newer tenements on the outskirts of the parish; in other words, that
from a quarter to a third of the labourer's whole income goes back
immediately into the pockets of the employing classes for shelter alone.
I know also that payments into benefit societies drain away another
eightpence to a shilling a week. I realize that very often the weekly
bread bill runs away with nearly half the money that is left, and so I
can reckon that tea and groceries, boots and clothes, firing and light,
have somehow to be obtained at a cost of no more than seven or eight
shillings weekly. But these calculations fail to satisfy me. They leave
unsolved the problem of those last seven or eight shillings, on the
expenditure of which turns the really vital question which an inquiry
like this ought to settle. How do the people make both ends meet? Are
the seven shillings as a rule enough for so many purposes? or almost,
but not quite enough? or nothing like enough? After all, I do not know.
Information breaks down just at this point where information is most to
be desired.