wary to increase their stakes or "hedge," as
the case may be. The system is to give what
is called a " scope," the extent of which
depends upon the time of year. In the winter
quarter, the betting man will perhaps give a
" scope " of twenty thousand pounds; that is
to say, will bet that his adversary will not
guess the amount of duty to be declared on
the next year's crop within that amount. But
as the year advances, and the hop has escaped
the dangers that beset its progress, the scope
is reduced. Clerks in the accountant's department
of Inland Revenue are much sought
after, and the slightest hint greedily devoured
as to the gross quantity of hops weighed ;
which certain men pretend to know, in much
the same way as sporting prophets boast of
their "office" or "tip" for the Derby. The
period between the picking and the declaration
of duty is usually a full month of excitement
to the parties wagering ; the duty is
known about the end of October. Last year
it was issued on the third of November.
The present is considered a tolerably fair
season, and the amount of the duty is anxiously
looked for.

We have something else to see. The pickers
are waiting to be paid in the hop garden; for
it is Saturday night. Our shadows are
strangely angular and gawky as we walk
along the stubble field again; the pickers
leave off before sunset, to allow time for carrying
away the hops by daylight. Their work
has to be measured first. The cutter leaves
off battling with the rows of poles, and comes
to measure with a wicker bushel having a
black line round it, outside, about half way
up. For any one of these bushels, filled as
lightly as possible — never quite up to the top
— the picker receives twopence. When only
a few hops remain at the bottom of the bin,
he watches most anxiously; for if the
remainder reaches beyond the black line it
counts a bushel: while if it falls short, it counts
as nothing. There is a delay at the sullen-
looking girl's bin, for she has dropped in too
many leaves, and must pick them out, one by
one. Cutter " wonders she didn't put in bines,
poles and all;" and bids her "look alive."
When everything is done, the farmer brings
his money bag, attended by a boy, who
reads the amounts to be paid from a book.
Most of the hands have been drawing money
in the week — they don't know how much
exactly, nor when; but the book assists their
memories. Nobody can recollect, either, how
much he has earned, but contents himself when
he is informed by saying, he " thought it was
ever so much more," by way of showing that
he is on the alert, and not to be cheated easily.
The merry old woman takes her money,
gaily. Sullen girl grumbles. Eager faces are
crowded around the payer. There is a man
with a very savage, heavy look, which has
been all along fixed intently upon the money
bag. " How much you ? "

" Oh! you know." Book is referred to,
and the savage man pounces upon fifteen
shillings. "Now, then; is everybody paid?"
There is a tidy, quiet, freckled-faced girl
standing a little way off, whom the merry old
woman spies, and says to her, " What! ain't
you got no money? Why didn't you go up?"
The girl says, " I didn't like to ask for it." On
this the merry old woman drags her up to
the farmer, and she, too, is paid. The pokes
are wheeled off; and the cutter drains the
great stone beer bottle; and the merry old
woman encumbers herself with many bundles
and two umbrellas; and all go talking and
laughing across the field, followed by the
woman drawing her infant family in the
covered child's waggon.

There is a great stir and a strange noise of
voices over East Farleigh to-night. In this little
out-of-the-way village of some twenty houses
scattered about, and with only one beer-shop,
three thousand hop-pickers (chiefly Irish) are
assembled. Hundreds of fires in the open air
look from a distance like the encampment of
an army.  In huts and stables and out-houses;
in abandoned mills; in crumbling barns and
dilapidated oast-houses whose cracks are
ineffectually stuffed with straw and clay; under
pents; against walls; in tents and under
canvas awnings, this multitude cook, eat,
drink, smoke and sleep. No wonder that in
the ground of the old church, I find a row of
grass-grown mounds, with an inscription on
wood, "In memory of forty-three strangers,
who died September, 1849. R. I. P. (Requiescant
in pace)." A parishioner tells me they
were all Irish hoppers; and only a portion of
those who died of the cholera here in the
season of that year. No inhabitant of the
parish was attacked; and to the credit of the
clergyman it is said, that he turned his house
into a temporary hospital, and with his wife
attended them night and day.

At the bridge, some are washing clothes:
women and girls and boys, wild, ragged,
uncouth wretches, most of them standing
bare-legged in the water rinsing shirts in
saucepans, and dabbing them against the
smutty edges as fast as they are cleaned;
boiling other clothes in cauldrons; and hanging
garments that have more superficies of
hole than cotton, upon the hedges. There,
too, are hideous old Sycoraxes smoking and
crouching over fires this warm day, and
shouting unintelligible sounds to fat children,
sprawling in the mud upon the shelving bank
of the river. Everybody has been paid
to-night, and most are off to buy provisions
for the week. There is a solitary butcher's
shop up the lane, with trees in front,
which is besieged. All round it  — for it is
open on three sides — a hungry mob hustle
and push and clamour to be served; and the
butcher, who all the year round has not a
whole sheep in his shop, now chops his way
out of heaps of meat. Then there is a lonely
grocer's — lonely no more — where as great a
crowd clamours for bacon, and bread, and