either to the landlords .or the tenants of the
farms on which they worked. Whatever remains
to be done, and it is much, there is a new
spirit abroad; and the more educated English
farmer has done his part towards getting rid of
an old reproach to which not his class only was
exposed. Parliamentary returns lately issued
show the rate of wages for farm-labourers in
England, Scotland, and Ireland. It is clear from
them that as to that essential matter the improved
systems of farming (from which the wise-acres
prophesied especial ruin to the labourer
competed with by the machine) bring improvement
of means to all who work upon the soil.
The average wages— best in Scotland, worst in
Ireland — are, in Scotland, thirteen shillings a
week: in England eleven and fourpence: in
Ireland only seven and a penny. Within the
last twenty years the average of farm wages in
England has risen twelve per cent, in Scotland
forty per cent, and in Ireland, partly by reason
of the large emigration, partly by reason of the
improved farming introduced by new proprietors
of the old encumbered estates, low as the average
is, it is nearly sixty per cent better than it was
before the repeal of the corn-laws. In England
the highest and the lowest rates of payment are
both to be found in the county of Kent. The
low rate of six and fourpence is entered as
having been met with in Faversharn. The
highest rate paid in the same county is thirteen
and fourpence a week; but a highest point of
fifteen shillings a week is found to be reached
sometimes in the north of England — Lancashire,
Cheshire, Yorkshire, Northumberland, Cumberland,
Westmoreland. In some parts of Westmoreland,
the rate is even as high as sixteen
and sixpence.

In the south of England, it appears that Hampshire
and Berkshire farmers afford ten or eleven
shillings; Sussex farmers, eleven or twelve;
Surrey farmers, from twelve shillings to twelve
and ninepence for the labour of men; men
paid by the piece generally earn two to three
shillings a week more than the men paid by
time. Quicker work is equivalent to a lengthening
of the fine season for haymaking or whatever
other work has to be done while weather
suits; but there are said to be practical difficulties
in the way of a general adoption in farm
labour of the principle called " paying for results."
Women upon the farms in the southern
English counties, earn from three and sixpence
to six shillings a week; children, from
three shillings to five and sixpence.

In Berkshire and Southampton there is an
additional pay to carters, of three pints daily of
small beer. So, in the east-midland district,
there is food during the harvest month, there is
breakfast on Sunday morning for horsekeepers,
shepherds, and cattle-men, besides occasional
pints of ale; and in the eastern districts two
pints of beer a day are given to men employed
at the thrashing-machine and corn-dressing. In
all these eastern parts, wages of men vary from
ten to thirteen shillings a week; of women,
from five shillings to the shilling with which
some Northampton farmers show their slight
estimate of the value of a woman's work upon
the farm.

The worst part of England for farm labourers
is the south-western district, including Wilts,
Dorset, Devon, Cornwall, and Somerset. In
Dorset, the pay is oftener nine shillings than ten;
in Devonshire, it falls even sometimes to eight,
with — as in Somerset — often a daily quart of
poor cider. Women in this part of England earn
from three to four shillings a week. Wherever
a district is purely agricultural, we may look for
the lowest rate of payment for farm labour.
Where the manufacturer in any sensible degree
competes for the use of labour with the farmer,
wages rise. Thus, in the west-midland district,
where the rate for men is from ten to twelve
shillings, it is highest in the neighbourhood of the
great Burton brewers; and in Lancashire the
demand for female labour in the factories raises
in some places even as high as seven and sixpence
a week the payment for woman's labour in
the field. In Durham, Northumberland, Cumberland,
and Westmoreland, the demand for work
at the collieries raises the price of labour generally.
In Durham it is from thirteen and sixpence
to fifteen shillings; it does not fall anywhere
below twelve shillings; it sometimes rises
in Westmoreland to sixteen and sixpence: while
a woman's labour will sometimes fetch eight
shillings in the fields, and even a child's labour
seven and sixpence. If the narrow areas of
rating for poor relief did not act practically as a
bar to the free movements of industry, these inequalities
would in a great degree adjust themselves.
To those places where the labouring
population is thin, where the demand is greatest,
and where wages are best, there would be migration
of labourers from districts overstocked
and yielding but small pay. In the districts
thus thinned, the value of work would rise,
while it would fall in those to which the required
additional supply of labour had been brought: in
each case, establishing the desirable approach to
a just average.

THE SENTIMENTS OF MARTHA JONES.

WE have just received the following communication
from an old correspondent, whose existence,
to say the truth, we had entirely forgotten.
We lay this curiosity before our readers exactly
as it came to hand.

506, Soane-street.

SIR, — I have had — ever since the opening of
the International Exhibition — a resident in my
house who has put me out a great deal, so I am
just going to relieve myself by a few words
written to your journal, which I must mention
that I take in regularly and have done so ever
since — nearly a year ago you —were so kind as to
put in some observations of mine about my
"Lodgers," at the sea-side establishment over
which I then presided. That establishment I
have now given up (worse luck), having been
persuaded to come to London and take a house,
with a view to letting lodgings during the