My grandfather writes to my father, 18 March 1844, “I remember going to see old ***** of Crediton about some business, and was sitting down by the fire talking with him, when a great coarse country maid came in and disturbed us. The old man was quite in a rage to see the maid tumbling everything over, and asked what she wanted. She said, ‘Why, us have lost the pudding-cloth six weeks, and as the gentleman is going to dine here, I suppose us shall have a pudding now.’ Turning round to me, the old man said corn was so dear, he could not afford to have puddings. He was a rich old man, grandfather of ***** and *****. I once asked him What news (as he was reading a paper) and he replied, ‘Oh, I don’t know: my paper is a fortnight old: I get it for a ha’penny then’.” Speaking of people nearer home, he says, 25 January 1846, “Very strange that Mr ***** never takes in a paper, though glad to get one gratis, Mr ***** takes none, so they must trust all to hearsay. Like the rest of the farmers, they are not much of politicians: they see or know but little beyond their own and parish affairs, and seldom go beyond their market towns, where they assemble and talk of the price of cattle and corn and advise each other how to cut down their little tradesmen and labourers. Government may do what it likes to oppress any other class, so as they are not meddled with.... Their cry hitherto has been Church and State, but at the Kingsbridge meeting they seemed to be grieved, and said the tithe was an exclusive burden on them. The parsons hitherto have congregated at those meetings, to support Protection for their own interest. Depend on it, it will not be long before the farmers will be the greatest enemies of the parsons. However, they will never get rid of the tithe. I cannot believe there ever will be a government that will take it off the land, and pay it out of the Consolidated Fund, as they expect.” There were farmers of another sort, and he finds fault with them as well, 3 June 1843, “They are now apeing the gentleman with their gigs and fine hackneys, and all the household and labourers pinched and begrudged.” But while he blamed both sorts of them for skimping labourers, he only paid the current wage himself. I see from his accounts for 1840 that he was paying 1_s._ 6_d._ a day to casual hands, and 10_s._ 6_d._ a week to regular hands, for agricultural work. The cost of living went down; and he writes to my father then, 7 February 1850, “No one has dropt the wages in this neighbourhood yet; but it is all very natural that wages should be dropt, if the labourer can live for about half what he has hitherto required.... I have no doubt that wages will come back to the old standard of 1_s._ 2_d._ and 1_s._ 4_d._ instead of 1_s._ 6_d._”