Authors, English -- 19th century -- Biography; Jefferies, Richard, 1848-1887
The agricultural women are certainly not handsome; I know no peasantry
so entirely uninviting. Occasionally there is a girl whose nut-brown
complexion and sloe-black eyes are pretty, but their features are very
rarely good, and they get plain quickly, so soon as the first flush of
youth is past. Many have really good hair in abundance, glossy and rich,
perhaps from its exposure to the fresh air. But on Sundays they plaster
it with strong-smelling pomade and hair-oil, which scents the air for
yards most unpleasantly. As a rule, it may safely be laid down that the
agricultural women are moral, far more so than those of the town. Rough
and rude jokes and language are, indeed, too common; but that is all. No
evil comes of it. The fairs are the chief cause of immorality. Many an
honest, hard-working servant-girl owes her ruin to these fatal mops and
fairs, when liquor to which she is unaccustomed overcomes her. Yet it
seems cruel to take from them the one day or two of the year on which
they can enjoy themselves fairly in their own fashion. The spread of
friendly societies, patronized by the gentry and clergy, with their
annual festivities, is a remedy which is gradually supplying them with
safer, and yet congenial, amusement. In what may be termed lesser morals
I cannot accord either them or the men the same praise. They are too
ungrateful for the many great benefits which are bountifully supplied
them--the brandy, the soup, and fresh meat readily extended without
stint from the farmer's home in sickness to the cottage are too quickly
forgotten. They who were most benefited are often the first to most
loudly complain and to backbite. Never once in all my observation have I
heard a labouring man or woman make a grateful remark; and yet I can
confidently say that there is no class of persons in England who receive
so many attentions and benefits from their superiors as the agricultural
labourers. Stories are rife of their even refusing to work at disastrous
fires because beer was not immediately forthcoming. I trust this is not
true; but it is too much in character. No term is too strong in
condemnation for those persons who endeavour to arouse an agitation
among a class of people so short-sighted and so ready to turn against
their own benefactors and their own interest. I am credibly informed
that one of these agitators, immediately after the Bishop of
Gloucester's unfortunate but harmlessly intended speech at the
Gloucester Agricultural Society's dinner--one of these agitators mounted
a platform at a village meeting and in plain language incited and
advised the labourers to duck the farmers! The agricultural women
either go out to field-work or become indoor servants. In harvest they
hay-make--chiefly light work, as raking; and reap, which is much harder
labour; but then, while reaping, they work their own time, as it is done
by the piece. Significantly enough, they make longer hours while
reaping.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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