“Oh, that silly rioting and machine-smashing. That always came out of the poor not understanding politics. If things were bad after Waterloo, it was all Bony’s work. And as for the unrest twenty years ago, we caught that from France, too, I remember dad telling me. They had risen against their king—such an unsettled people. But to-day it’s our own British Government that’s the enemy, and the money we farmers have lost this year is something dreadful.” “But you don’t look as starved as some of our labourers’ families. I’ve seen the Pennymole children crying for dry bread, and the father saying, ‘I darsn’t cut you no more—do, ye’ll have none Saturday.’ And Mr. Pennymole’s always worked for you.” “You don’t understand politics, Jinny.” “I understand poverty. The Pennymoles are better off, now they’ve got two boys grown up and earning sixpence a day. But I’ve seen Mrs. Pennymole making tea with charred bread, and her husband compelled to steal the cabbages left for the cows. . . . Oh, I oughtn’t to have said that,” she added in alarm. “You certainly oughtn’t! _Compelled_ to break the Eighth Commandment—a pretty doctrine! And such liars, too. I saw quite a little girl munching a turnip she’d just filched from my field, and when I complained to her mother, the woman unblushingly said, ‘’Tis me fats her up with swedes and turnips.’” “They can’t see their children hunger.” “They can put some of them in the poorhouse.” “Look at the mites there, white and half-starved. Sometimes I’ve got to deliver a parcel to Mr. Jims, the porter, and I hear the Master thrashing ’em with a stick.” “And it’s what boys need—even my brat. Carrying parcels, indeed!” He stopped abruptly. “Well, but they make the old folks of eighty and ninety scour the stone steps and do the washing!” “They needn’t go in—they can get relief from the parish.” “The parish! Eighteenpence a week for the family when the father’s bedridden.” “There’s the parish loaves!” “Have you ever seen one? Half-baked, without real crust, all raw and soft, where it stuck to the next loaf.” “Beggars can’t be choosers. Besides, there’s plenty of work after harvest.” “Yes, even for babies of six,” said Jinny bitterly. “And to keep boys from their beds after hard field-work. And at White Notley where they make the silk, there’s little girls standing on stools to reach the weaving-desk.” “If you understood politics,” Farmer Gale persisted, “you’d understand that prices make themselves, and that what we get with one hand we have to give away with the other. Have you ever heard of the Income Tax now?” “No,” admitted Jinny. “Ha! You’d change your tune if you had to pay a shilling on every pound you earned. But that’s merely the last straw that breaks the camel’s back, for it isn’t only as a farmer I’m put upon. But think of the Malt Tax! It’s simply a scandal.”