The sacrifice of the wage-earners’ children was caused by the mother’s starvation; vainly she gave her own food to the children for then she was unable to suckle the baby and grew too feeble for her former work. Probably she had herself been the daughter of a husbandman and was inured to labour from child hood. “Sent abroad into service and hardship when but 10 years old” as Oliver Heywood wrote of a faithful servant, she met the chances which decide a servant’s life. The work on farms was rough, but generally healthy. At first the child herded the pigs or the geese and followed the harrow and as she grew older the poultry yard and the cows divided her attention with the housework. Sometimes she was brutally treated and often received little training in her work, but generosity in meat and drink has always been characteristic of the English farmer, and during the hungry years of adolescence the average girl who was a servant in husbandry was amply nourished. Then came marriage. The more provident waited long in the hope of securing independence, and one of those desirable cottages with four acres of land, but to some the prospect seemed endless and at last they married hoping something would turn up; or perhaps they were carried away by natural impulses and married young without any thought for the future. Such folly was the despair of Churchwardens and Overseers, yet the folly need not seem so surprising when we consider that delay brought the young people no assurance of improvement in their position. Church and State alike taught that it was the duty of men and women to marry and bring forth children, and if for a large class the organisation of Society made it impossible for them to rear their children, who is to blame for the fate of those children, their parents or the community? After one of these imprudent marriages the husband sometimes continued to work on a farm as a servant, visiting his wife and children on Sundays and holidays. By this means he, at least, was well fed and well housed. The woman with a baby to care for and feed, could not leave her home every day to work and must share the children’s food. In consequence she soon began to practise starvation. Her settlement was disputed, and therefore her dwelling was precarious. Nominally she was transferred on marriage to the parish where her husband was bound as servant for the term of one year, but the parish objected to the settlement of a married man lest his children became a burden on them. No one doubted that it was somebody’s duty to care for the poor, but arrangements for relief were strictly parochial and the fear of incurring unlimited future responsibilities led English parishioners to strange lengths of cruelty and callousness. The fact that a woman was soon to have a baby, instead of appealing to their chivalry, seemed to them the best reason for turning her out of her house and driving her from the village, even when a hedge was her only refuge.