small pieces of enclosed land about each house are occupied, for they scarce sow corn enough to feed their poultry. The houses are full of lusty fellows, some at the dye-vat, some at the looms, others dressing the cloths; the women and children carding or spinning; being all employed, from the youngest to the oldest." And Defoe adds a remark, which is certainly not applicable either to Halifax or to any other manufacturing town of the present day, for he concludes his description with the words: "not a beggar to be seen, or an idle person."1

§ 196. The Condition of the Manufacturing Population.

For it is a significant fact that under the old domestic system, simple and cumbrous as it was, the manufacturing population was very much better off than it was for some. time after the Industrial Revolution. For one thing, they still lived more or less in the country, and were not crowded together in stifling alleys and courts, or in long rows of bare smoke-begrimed streets, in houses like so many dirty rabbit-hutches. Even if the artisan did live in a town at that time, the town was very different from the abodes of smoke and dirt which now prevail in the manufacturing districts. It had a more rural character.2 There were no tall chimneys, belching out clouds of evil smoke; no huge, hot factories with their hundreds of windows blazing forth a lurid light in the darkness, and rattling with the whirr and din of ceaseless machinery by day and night. There were no gigantic blast furnaces rising amid blackened heaps of cinders, or chemical works poisoning the fields and trees for miles around. These were yet to come. The factory and the furnace were almost unknown. Work was carried' on by the artisan in his little stone or brick house, with the workshop inside, where the wool for the weft was carded and spun by his wife and daughters, and the cloth was 1 Tour, iii. p. 146.

2 Cf. Cunningham, Growth of Industry, ii. 480.

3

3 At Armley " many persons who have small farms also carry on clothmaking, employing their wives, children, and servants." Report from the Committee on the state of the woollen manufacture; Reports, 1806, iii. 602; also the quotation from Defoe, just above.

woven by himself and his sons. He had also, in nearly all cases, his plot of land near the house, which provided him both with food and recreation, for he could relieve the monotony of weaving by cultivating his little patch of ground, or feeding his pigs and poultry. The woollen weavers, especially, in all parts of the country appear to have had allotments or large gardens, some of which still exist; and even at the beginning of the nineteenth century there was a large part of the manufacturing population which was not yet divorced from rural employments.3

§ 197. Two Examples of Village Life.

5

The old conditions of life in English villages under this domestic system, with its healthy combination of agricultural and manufacturing industry, and its prevalence of bye-industries, are even yet not entirely forgotten, and may be here illustrated by personal testimonies, one from the south and the other from the north of England. A most interesting picture of life in a Hampshire village is thus drawn by the late Professor Thorold Rogers. "In my native village [West Meon] in Hampshire, I well remember two instances of agricultural labourers who raised themselves through the machinery of the allowance system to the rank and fortunes of small yeomen. Both had large families, and both practised a bye-industry. The village was peculiar in its social character, for there was not a tenant-farmer in it, all being freeholders or copyholders. There was no poverty in the whole place. Most of the labourers baked their own bread, brewed their own beer, kept pigs and poultry, and had half an acre or an acre to till for themselves as part of their hire. The rector built extensively parsonage, schools, and finally church, from his own means, and, therefore, employment was pretty general. 1 Arthur Young, Farmer's Letters, i. 205, and cf. Toynbee, Indust. Rev., p. 68.

2 Cunningham, Growth of Industry, ii. 480. I might add from personal observation the case of the place still known as the "Woolsorters' Gardens" at Heaton, near Bradford, Yorks.

3 Cunningham, u. 8., ii. 481.

4 Six Centuries, p. 502.

See below, pp. 408, 412-414.

The village mason became a considerable yeoman. But the two labourers of whom I am speaking had their allowances, and lived on their fixed wages, with the profits of their bye-labour... and the produce of their small curtilage." Thus the prevalence of bye-industries, combined with allotments, gave the labourer and artisan, under the domestic system, a far better chance of gaining a comfortable and healthy livelihood than he possessed in those cases where the factory system had deprived him of these advantages.

1

The other picture is from a writer who derives his experience from the northern counties. Speaking of English village life," as it existed in the memory of many now living," he remarks: "The village combined agricultural with industrial occupation; the click of the loom was heard in the cottages; the farmyard and the fields, the cottages and the allotment gardens, made a delightful picture of rural life. The land was mainly freehold; the farmers were of the yeoman class, and not infrequently combined the calling of a clothier or master manufacturer along with that of farming. The farmer's wife, although born with a silver spoon, was industrious and thrifty; with her own hand she would churn the butter, make the cheese, cure the bacon and ham, or bake the bread; her daughters would assist in spinning the yarn, or knitting the stockings; and from the cloths woven under their supervision they would, with the assistance of the village dressmaker, make their own dresses. If you entered one of the cottages you would find the master of the house in the chamber,' sitting at the loom, busy throwing the shuttle, weaving a piece of cloth; his daughter would be sitting at the wheel, spinning weft; and the good wife would be busy with her domestic duties. One son would be out working on the land for the farmer; another would be working on the weaver's allotment. Down in their little allotment plot they grow their own vegetables, and a little crop of oats, which they have ground into oatmeal for making their porridge; they also keep a pig or two, and provide their own bacon and ham. They are on good terms with the master-manufacturer-that is, the 1 Thomas Illingworth, Distribution Reform (Cassell, London, 1885), p. 81.

gentleman who gives them warp and weft to weave into cloth. He is also a large farmer, and in the hay-harvest and corn-harvest they all have a fine time in the fields, giving a hand to the cutting, the harvesting, and homecarrying of the crops. . . . Their chief articles of food are produced from the land immediately surrounding them. Their means of subsistence and comfort are not to be computed by the amount of their earnings in money-wages, but the produce of their bit of land, and the ease and cheapness with which they can obtain other necessities."

"1

It will thus be seen that the old domestic system had, at least for the working-classes, many advantages, some of which have not been even yet perhaps quite compensated by the undoubted benefits of the Industrial Revolution. It is foolish, as well as inaccurate, to imagine that the past must have been necessarily better than the present; but, on the other hand, it may readily be admitted that there are many single features in it which compare more than favourably with those of to-day, though the general outline of the present may be superior.

3

Work, for instance, was more regular than it often is at present, for there were fewer commercial fluctuations; 2 fashions did not change so quickly, and the market for homespun fabrics was always steady and assured. The relations between employers and employed were far closer; even the distribution of wealth was comparatively more equal. Wages were somewhat less in money value than at present, but, then, prices of food and rent were only about half what they are now. Arthur Young gives 9s. 6d. as the average weekly wages of an artisan in the North and Midland counties, though in some cases they were much higher, while the average rent for a cottage in the same counties he puts at 28s. 2d. a year, or only 64d. per week. And it must be remembered that this included

1 The writer means that most of these could be obtained from their own work, or from their neighbours, who practised other bye-industries; cf. pp. 82-83 of the book quoted.

2

* Cf. Toynbee, Indust. Revolution, p. 71.

3 Ib.

4 Young, Northern Tour, iv. 470-472 (wages), 435-439 (rent); ed. 1770. The wages of hand wool combers in 1747 were 12s. to 21s. a week, according to Burnley, Wool and Woolcombing, p. 159.

a piece of land round the cottage. Meat, also, was cheap, being from 2d. to 31d. per pound; and bread 11d. a pound.1 In fact, we may confidently say that artisans, especially spinners and weavers, were well off about 1760. Adam Smith testifies to this in the Wealth of Nations. Not only has grain become somewhat cheaper," he says, "but many other things from which the industrious poor derive an agreeable and wholesome variety of food have become a great deal cheaper." 2 And the healthy condition of industry in general is shown by the fact that at the close of the wars with France, by the Peace of 1763, when more than 100,000 men accustomed to war were thrown upon the country, and had to find work or else be supported in some way or other, "not only no great convulsion, but no sensible disorder arose." 3

§ 198. Condition of the Agricultural Population.

Nor was that convenient plenty which was the lot of the manufacturing portion of the people confined only to that section. The condition of the agricultural labourer, who, was generally the worst off of all classes, from being so much under the direct supervision of his master, had considerably improved, together with the general improvement of agriculture spoken of in a previous chapter. The price of corn had fallen, while wages had risen, though these were less than an artisan's, being, according to Arthur Young's average estimate for the North and Midland counties, about 7s. a week.4 But it was generally 8s. or 10s., while the board of a working man may be placed at about 5s. or 6s. a week. Cottages were occasionally rent free, or, at any rate, only paid a low rent, never more than 50s. or 60s. per year, and generally much less. Moreover, just as

1 Young, Northern Tour, iv. 451 sqq.

2 Wealth of Nations, Bk. I. ch. viii. (i. 82, Clarendon Press edn.).

3 Wealth of Nations. Bk. IV. ch. ii. (ii. 43, Clarendon Press edn.).

• Northern Tour, iv. 445. The exact average is 7s. 1d. He gives board

as 8d. a day in the North and 10d. in the South. Ib., iv. 441.

5 Cf. A Table of Wages and Prices of Commodities during three important Epochs of English Industry, by Thomas Illingworth (Bradford).

6 Ib.