free from the burthen of a surplus population of working men must not be
overlooked. Emigration has been more largely resorted to in that county,
than perhaps in any other in England. Out of the population of the
Penzance Union alone, nearly five per cent. left their native land for
Australia, or New Zealand, in 1849. The potato-blight was, at that time,
assigned as the chief cause of the readiness to emigrate; for it damaged
seriously the growth of a vegetable, from the sale of which, at the
London markets, the Cornish agriculturalists derived large profits, and
on which (with their fish) the Cornish poor depend as a staple article
of food.
It is by the mines and fisheries (of both of which I shall speak
particularly in another place) that Cornwall is compensated for a soil,
too barren in many parts of the county, to be ever well cultivated
except at such an expenditure of capital as no mere farmer can afford.
From the inexhaustible mineral treasures in the earth, and from the
equally inexhaustible shoals of pilchards which annually visit the
coast, the working population of Cornwall derive their regular means of
support, where agriculture would fail them. At the mines, the regular
rate of wages is from forty to fifty shillings a month; but miners have
opportunities of making more than this. By what is termed "working on
tribute," that is, agreeing to excavate the mineral lodes for a per
centage on the value of the metal they raise, some of them have been
known to make as much as six and even ten pounds each, in a month. When
they are unlucky in their working speculations, or perhaps thrown out of
employment altogether by the shutting up of a mine, they still have a
fair opportunity of obtaining farm labour, which is paid for (out of
harvest time) at the rate of nine shillings a week. But this is a
resource of which they are rarely obliged to take advantage. A plot of
common ground is included with the cottages that are let to them; and
the cultivation of this, helps to keep them and their families, in bad
times, until they find an opportunity of resuming work; when they may
perhaps make as much in one month, as an agricultural labourer can in
twelve.
The fisheries not only employ all the inhabitants of the coast, but, in
the pilchard season, many of the farm work-people as well. Ten thousand
persons--men, women, and children--derive their regular support from the
fisheries; which are so amazingly productive, that the "drift," or
deep-sea fishing, in Mount's Bay alone, is calculated to realize, on the
average, 30,000_l._ per annum.
To the employment thus secured for the poor in the mines and fisheries
is to be added, as an advantage, the cheapness of rent and living in
Cornwall. Good cottages are let at from fifty shillings, to between
three and four pounds a-year--turf for firing grows in plenty on the
vast tracts of common land overspreading the country--all sorts of
vegetables are abundant and cheap, with the exception of potatoes, which
so decreased in 1849, in consequence of the disease, that the winter
stock was imported from France, Belgium, and Holland. The early
potatoes, however, grown in May and June, are cultivated in large
quantities, and realize on exportation a very high price. Corn generally
sells a little above the average. Fish is always within the reach of the
poorest people. In a good season, a dozen pilchards are sold for one
penny. Happily for themselves, the poor in Cornwall do not partake the
senseless prejudice against fish, so obstinately adhered to by the poor
in many other parts of England. A Cornishman's national pride is in his
pilchards--he likes to talk of them, and boast about them to strangers;
and with reason, for he depends for the main support of life on the
tribute of these little fish which the sea yields annually in almost
countless shoals.
The workhouse system in Cornwall is said, by those who are well
qualified to form an opinion on the subject, to be generally well
administered; the Unions in the eastern part of the county being the
least stringent in their regulations, and the most liberal in giving
out-of-door relief.
Such, briefly, but I think not incorrectly stated, is the condition of
the poor in Cornwall, in relation to their means of subsistence as a
class. Looking to the fact that the number of labourers there is not too
much for the labour; comparing the rate of wages with rent and the price
of provisions; setting the natural advantages of the county fairly
against its natural disadvantages, it is impossible not to conclude that
the Cornish poor suffer less by their poverty, and enjoy more
opportunities of improving their social position, than the majority of
their brethren in many other counties of England. The general demeanour
and language of the people themselves amply warrant this conclusion.
The Cornish are essentially a cheerful, contented race. The views of the
working men are remarkably moderate and sensible--I never met with so
few grumblers anywhere.
My opportunities of correctly estimating the state of education among
the people, were not sufficiently numerous to justify me in offering to
the reader more than a mere opinion on the subject. Such few
observations as I was able to make, inclined me to think that, in
education, the mass of the population was certainly below the average in
England, with one exception--that of the classes employed in the mines.
All of these men with whom I held any communication, would not have been
considered badly-informed persons in a higher condition of life. They
possessed much more than a common mechanical knowledge of their own
calling, and even showed a very fair share of information on the subject
of the history and antiquities of their native county. As usual, the
agricultural inhabitants appeared to rank lowest in the scale of
education and general intelligence. Among this class, and among the
fishermen, the strong superstitious feelings of the ancient days of
Cornwall still survive, and promise long to remain, handed down from
father to son as heirlooms of tradition, gathered together in a remote
period, and venerable in virtue of their antiquity. The notion, for
instance, that no wound will fester as long as the instrument by which
it was inflicted is kept bright and clean, still prevails extensively
among them. But a short time since, a boy in Cornwall was placed under
the care of a medical man (who related the anecdote to me) for a wound
in the back from a pitchfork; his relatives--cottagers of
respectability--firmly believe that his cure was accelerated by the
pains they took to keep the prongs of the pitchfork in a state of the
highest polish, night and day, throughout the whole period of his
illness, and down to the last hour of his complete restoration to
health.
Another and a more remarkable instance of the superstitions prevailing
among the least educated classes of the people, was communicated to me
by the same informant--a gentleman whose life had been passed in
Cornwall, and who was highly and deservedly respected by all those among
whom he resided.[3]
A small farmer living in one of the most western districts of the
county, died some years back of what was supposed at the time to be
"English Cholera." A few weeks after his decease, his wife married
again. This circumstance excited some attention in the neighbourhood. It
was remembered that the woman had lived on very bad terms with her late
husband, that she had on many occasions exhibited strong symptoms of
possessing a very vindictive temper, and that during the farmer's
lifetime she had openly manifested rather more than a Platonic
preference for the man whom she subsequently married. Suspicion was
generally excited: people began to doubt whether the first husband had
died fairly. At length the proper order was applied for, and his body
was disinterred. On examination, enough arsenic to have poisoned three
men was found in his stomach. The wife was accused of murdering him, was
tried, convicted on the clearest evidence, and hanged. Very shortly
after she had suffered capital punishment, horrible stories of a ghost
were widely circulated. Certain people declared that they had seen a
ghastly resemblance of the murderess, robed in her winding-sheet, with
the black mark of the rope round her swollen neck, standing on stormy
nights upon her husband's grave, and digging there with a spade in
hideous imitation of the actions of the men who had disinterred the
corpse for medical examination. This was fearful enough--nobody dared go
near the place after nightfall. But soon, another circumstance was
talked of, in connexion with the poisoner, which affected the
tranquillity of people's minds in the village where she had lived, and
where it was believed she had been born, more seriously than even the
ghost-story itself.
Near the church of this village there was a well, celebrated among the
peasantry of the district for one remarkable property--every child
baptized in its water (with which the church was duly supplied on
christening occasions) was secure from ever being hanged. No one doubted
that all the babies fortunate enough to be born and baptized in the
parish, though they might live to the age of Methuselah, and might
during that period commit all the capital crimes recorded in the
"Newgate Calendar," were still destined to keep quite clear of the
summary jurisdiction of Jack Ketch--no one doubted this, until the story
of the apparition of the murderess began to be spread abroad. Then,
awful misgivings arose in the popular mind. A woman who had been born
close by the magical well, and who had therefore in all probability been
baptized in its water like her neighbours of the parish, had
nevertheless been publicly and unquestionably hanged. However,
probability was not always truth--everybody determined that the
baptismal register of the poisoner should be sought for, and that it
should be thus officially ascertained whether she had been christened
with the well water, or not. After much trouble, the important document
was discovered--not where it was first looked after, but in a
neighbouring parish vestry. A mistake had been made about the woman's
birthplace--she had not been baptized in the local church, and had
therefore not been protected by the marvellous virtue of the local
water. Unutterable was the joy and triumph of this discovery throughout
the village--the wonderful character of the parish well was wonderfully
vindicated--its celebrity immediately spread wider than ever. The
peasantry of the neighbouring districts began to send for the renowned
water before christenings; and many of them actually continue, to this
day, to bring it corked up in bottles to their churches, and to beg
particularly that it may be used whenever they present their children
to be baptized.
Such instances of superstition as this--and others equally true might be
quoted--afford, perhaps, of themselves, the best evidence of the low
state of education among the people from whom they are produced. It is,
however, only fair to state, that children in Cornwall are now enabled
to partake of advantages which were probably not offered to their
parents. Good National Schools are in operation everywhere, and are--as
far as my own inquiries authorize me to report--well attended by pupils
recruited from the ranks of the poorest classes.
Of the social qualities of the Cornish all that can be written may be
written conscientiously in terms of the highest praise. Travelling as my
companion and I did--in a manner which (whatever it may be now) was, ten
years since, perfectly new to the majority of the people--we found
constant opportunities of studying the popular character in its every
day aspects. We perplexed some, we amused others: here, we were welcomed
familiarly by the people, as travelling pedlars with our packs on our
backs; there, we were curiously regarded at an awful distance, and
respectfully questioned in circumlocutory phrases as to our secret
designs in walking through the country. Thus, viewing us sometimes as
their equals, sometimes as mysteriously superior to them, the peasantry
unconsciously exhibited many of their most characteristic peculiarities
without reserve. We looked at the spectacle of their social life from
the most searching point of view, for we looked at it from behind the
scenes.
The manners of the Cornish of all ranks, down to the lowest, are
remarkably distinguished by courtesy--a courtesy of that kind which is
quite independent of artificial breeding, and which proceeds solely from
natural motives of kindness and from an innate anxiety to please. Few of
the people pass you without a salutation. Civil questions are always
answered civilly. No propensity to jeer at strangers is exhibited--on
the contrary, great solicitude is displayed to afford them any
assistance that they may require; and displayed, moreover, without the
slightest appearance of a mercenary motive. Thus, if you stop to ask
your way, you are not merely directed for a mile or two on, and then
told to ask again; but directed straight to the end of your destination,
no matter how far off. Turnings to the right, and turnings to the left,
short cuts across moors five miles away, churches that you must keep on
this hand, and rocks that you must keep on that, are impressed upon
your memory with the most laborious minuteness, and shouted after you
over and over again as long as you are within hearing. If the utmost
anxiety to give the utmost quantity of good advice could always avail
against accident or forgetfulness, no traveller in Cornwall who asks his
way as he goes, need ever lose himself.
When people possess the virtue of natural courtesy they are seldom found
wanting in other higher virtues that are akin to it. Household
affection, ready hospitality, and great gratitude for small rewards of
services rendered, are all to be found among the Cornish peasantry.
Their fondness for their children is very pleasant to see. A word of
inquiry or praise addressed to the mother makes her face glow with
delight, and sends her away at once in search of the missing members of
her little family, who are ranged before you triumphantly, with smoothed
hair and carefully wiped faces, ready to be reviewed in a row. Both
father and mother often wish you, at parting, a good wife and a large
family (if you are not married already), just as they wish you a
pleasant journey and a prosperous return home again.
Of Cornish hospitality we experienced many proofs, one of which may be
related as a sample. Arriving late at a village, in the far west of the
county, we found some difficulty in arousing the people of the inn.
While we were waiting at the door, we heard a man who lived in a cottage
near at hand, and of whom we had asked our way on the road, inquiring of
some female member of his family, whether she could make up a spare bed.
We had met this man proceeding in our direction, and had so far
outstripped him in walking, that we had been waiting outside the inn
about a quarter of an hour before he got home. When the woman answered
his question in the negative, he directed her to put clean sheets on his
own bed, and then came out to tell us that if we failed to obtain
admission at the public-house, a lodging for the night was ready for us
under his own roof. We found on inquiry, afterwards, that he had looked
out of window, after getting home, while we were still disturbing the
village by a continuous series of assaults on the inn door; had
recognised us in the moonlight; and had thereupon not only offered us
his bed, but had got out of it himself to do so. When we finally
succeeded in gaining admittance to the inn, he declined an invitation to
sup with us, and wishing us a good night's rest, returned to his home. I
should mention, at the same time, that another bed was offered to us at
the vicarage, by the clergyman of the parish; and that after this
gentleman had himself seen that we were properly accommodated by our
landlady, he left us with an invitation to breakfast with him the next
morning. Thus is hospitality practised in Cornwall--a county where, it
must be remembered, a stranger is doubly a stranger, in relation to
provincial sympathies; where the national feeling is almost entirely
merged in the local feeling; where a man speaks of himself as _Cornish_
in much the same spirit as a Welshman speaks of himself as Welsh.
In like manner, another instance drawn from my own experience, will best
display the anxiety which we found generally testified by the Cornish
poor to make the best and most grateful return in their power for
anything which they considered as a favour kindly bestowed. Such little
anecdotes as I here relate in illustration of popular character, cannot,
I think, be considered trifling; for it is by trifles, after all, that
we gain our truest appreciation of the marking signs of good or evil in
the dispositions of our fellow-beings; just as in the beating of a
single artery under the touch, we discover an indication of the strength
or weakness of the whole vital frame.
On the granite cliffs at the Land's End I met with an old man,
seventy-two years of age, of whom I asked some questions relative to the
extraordinary rocks scattered about this part of the coast. He
immediately opened his whole budget of local anecdotes, telling them in
a quavering high-treble voice, which was barely audible above the dash
of the breakers beneath, and the fierce whistling of the wind among the
rocks around us. However, the old fellow went on talking incessantly,
hobbling along before me, up and down steep paths and along the very
brink of a fearful precipice, with as much coolness as if his sight was
as clear and his step as firm as in his youth. When he had shown me all
that he could show, and had thoroughly exhausted himself with talking, I
gave him a shilling at parting. He appeared to be perfectly astonished
by a remuneration which the reader will doubtless consider the reverse
of excessive; thanked me at the top of his voice; and then led me, in a
great hurry, and with many mysterious nods and gestures, to a hollow in
the grass, where he had spread on a clean pocket-handkerchief a little
stock-in-trade of his own, consisting of barnacles, bits of rock and
ore, and specimens of dried seaweed. Pointing to these, he told me to
take anything I liked, as a present in return for what I had given him.
He would not hear of my buying anything; he was not, he said, a regular
guide, and I had paid him more already than such an old man was
worth--what I took out of his handkerchief I must take as a present
only. I saw by his manner that he would be really mortified if I
contested the matter with him, so as a present I received one of his
pieces of rock--I had no right to deny him the pleasure of doing a kind
action, because there happened to be a few more shillings in my pocket
than in his.
Nothing can be much better adapted to show how simple and
unsophisticated the Cornish character still remains in many respects,
than Cornish notions of organizing a public festival, and Cornish
enjoyment of that festival when it is organized. We had already seen how
they managed a public boat-race at Looe, and we saw again how they
conducted the preparations for the same popular festival, on a larger
scale, at the coast town of Fowey.
In the first place, the dormant public enthusiasm was stimulated by
music at an uncomfortably early hour in the morning. Two horn players
and a clarionet player; a fat musician who blew through a very small
fife and kept time with his head; and a withered little man who beat
furiously on a mighty drum--drew up in martial array, one behind the
other, before the principal inn. Two boys, staring about them in a
stolidly important manner, and carrying flags which bore a suspicious
resemblance to India pocket handkerchiefs sewn together, formed in front
of the musicians. Two corpulent, solemn, elderly gentlemen in black
(belonging, apparently, to the churchwarden-type of the human species),
formed in their turn on each side of the boys--and then the procession
started; walking briskly up and down, and in and out, and round and
round the same streets, over and over again; the musicians playing on
all their instruments at once (drum included), without a moment's
intermission on the part of any one of them. Nothing could exceed the
gravity and silence of the popular concourse which followed this
grotesque procession. The solemn composure on the countenances of the
two corpulent civil officers who went before it, was reflected on the
features of the smallest boy who followed humbly behind. Profound
musical amateurs in attendance at a classical quartet concert, could
have exhibited no graver or more breathless attention than that
displayed by the inhabitants of Fowey, as they marched at the heels of
the peripatetic town band.
But, while the music was proceeding, another adjunct to the dignity of
the festival was in course of preparation, which appealed more strongly
to popular sympathy even than the band and procession. A quantity of
young trees--miserable little saplings cut short in their early
infancy--were brought into the town, curiously sharpened at the stems.
Holes were rapidly drilled in the ground, here, there, and everywhere,
for their reception, at corners of house walls. While men outside set
them up, women in a high state of excitement appeared at first-floor
windows with long pieces of string, which they fastened to the branches
to steady the trees at the top, hauling them about this way and that
most unmercifully during the operation, and then vanishing to tie the
loose ends of the lines to bars of grates and legs of tables. Mazes of
long tight strings ran all across our room at the inn; broken twigs and
drooping leaves peered in sadly at us through the three windows that
lighted it. We were driven about from corner to corner out of the way of
this rigging by an imperious old woman, who fastened and fettered the
wretched trees with as fierce an air as if they were criminals whom she
was handcuffing, and who at last fairly told us that she thought we had
better leave the room, and see how beautiful things looked from the
outside. On obeying this intimation, we found that the trees had
absorbed the whole public attention to themselves. The band marched by,
playing furiously; but the boys deserted it. The people from the
country, hastening into the town, hot and eager, paused, reckless of the
music, reckless of the flags, reckless of the procession, to look forth
upon the streets "with verdure clad." The popularity of the Sons of
Apollo was a thing of the past already! Nothing can well be imagined
more miserably ugly than the appearance of the trees, standing strung
into unnatural positions, and looking half dead already; but they
evidently inspired the liveliest public satisfaction. Women returned to
the windows to give a last perfecting tug to their branches; men patted
approvingly with spades the loose earth round their stems. Spectators,
one by one, took a near view and a distant view, and then walked gently
by and took an occasional view, and lastly gathered together in little
groups and took a general view. As connoisseurs look at their pictures,
as mothers look at their children, as lovers look at their
mistresses--so did the people of Fowey assemble with one accord and look
at their trees.
After all, however, I shall perhaps best illustrate the simplicity of
character displayed by the Cornish country-people, if I leave the less
amusing preparations for inaugurating the Fowey boat-race untold, and
describe some of the peculiarities of behaviour and remark which the
appearance of my companion and myself called forth in all parts of
Cornwall. The mere sight of two strangers walking with such appendages
as knapsacks strapped on their shoulders, seemed of itself to provoke
the most unbounded wonder. We were stared at with almost incredible
pertinacity and good humour. People hard at work, left off to look at
us; while groups congregated at cottage doors, walked into the middle of
the road when they saw us approach, looked at us in front from that
commanding point of view until we passed them, and then wheeled round
with one accord and gazed at us behind as long as we were within sight.
Little children ran in-doors to bring out large children, as we drew
near. Farmers, overtaking us on horseback, pulled in, and passed at a
walk, to examine us at their ease. With the exception of bedridden
people and people in prison, I believe that the whole population of
Cornwall looked at us all over--back view and front view--from head to
foot!