The summer being over, he obtained employment as a cattle-feeder, but at 1s. per week less than other labourers; and although he had to work seven days, he received the noble sum of 8s. per week. The reason given for paying this low wage was that he had been in the Army and was not an able-bodied workman. No more unjust treatment could be meted out to anyone. It was in the year of 1840--the year of Queen Victoria's marriage--that Thomas Edwards married the young widow, Mary Stageman. She had been left with three little children, and had herself been an inmate of the workhouse during her late husband's illness. The first child born to this couple was a son, whom they named Joseph, the second was named John, and the third was a girl, whom they named Harriet. Between this child and the next to live there was a period of five years. All of this family are now dead with the exception of my sister and myself. As the family increased, their poverty increased. Wages were decreased, and had it not been for the fact that my mother was able to add a little to her husband's wages by hand-loom weaving (which was quite a village industry at that time), the family would have been absolutely starved. Hand-loom weaving was a most sweated industry. One man in the village would go to Norwich and fetch the raw material from the factory and take the finished work back. This weaving was principally done by women, who were paid for it by the piece, that is, so many yards to the piece at so much per piece. A certain sum was deducted to pay the man for the time spent in carrying the work backward and forward to Norwich. If there was any defect in the weaving, then another sum was deducted from the price which should have been paid, and the employers never lost an opportunity of doing this. Poor sweated workers were robbed at every turn. I have known my mother to be at the loom sixteen hours out of the twenty-four, and for these long hours she would not average more than 4s. a week, and very often less than that. [Illustration: THE AUTHOR'S BIRTHPLACE, MARSHAM, NORFOLK.] It was on October 5, 1850, that Mary Edwards bore her last baby boy. The cottage in which the child was born was a miserable one of but two bedrooms, in which had to sleep father, mother, and six children. At this time my father's wage had been reduced to 7s. per week. The family at this time was in abject poverty. When lying in bed with the infant the mother's only food was onion gruel. As a result of the bad food, or, properly speaking, the want of food, she was only able to feed the child at her breast a week. After the first week he had to be fed on bread soaked in very poor skimmed milk. As soon as my mother was able to get about again she had to take herself again to the loom, and the child was left during the day to the care of his little sister, who was only five years his senior, and many a shaking did she give him when he cried.