Dickens's England: Life in Victorian Times

by Pritchard, R. E.

  [Spittal, near Lincoln, 19 April, 1830]

  It is time for me now, withdrawing myself from these objects visible to the eye, to speak of the state of the people, and of the manner in which their affairs are affected by the workings of the system. With regard to the labourers, they are, everywhere, miserable. The wages for those who are employed on the land are, through all the counties that I have come, twelve shillings a week for married men, and less for single ones; but a large part of them are not even at this season employed on the land. The farmers, for want of means of profitable employment, suffer the men to fall upon the parish; and they are employed in digging and breaking stone for the roads; so that the roads are nice and smooth for the sheep and cattle to walk on in their way to the all-devouring jaws of the Jews and other tax-eaters in London and its vicinity. None of the best meat, except by mere accident, is consumed here. Today we have seen hundreds and hundreds of sheep, as fat as hogs, go by this inn door, their toes, like those of the foot-marks at the entrance of the lion’s den, all pointing towards the Wen [Cobbett was the first to call London ‘the great Wen’]; and the landlord gave us for dinner a little skinny, hard leg of old ewe mutton! Where the man got it, I cannot imagine. Thus it is: every good thing is literally driven or carried away out of the country.

  One of the great signs of poverty of people in the middle rank of life, is the falling off of the audiences at the playhouses. There is a playhouse in almost every country town, where the players used to act occasionally; and in large towns almost always. In some places they have of late abandoned acting altogether. In others they have acted, very frequently, to not more than ten or twelve persons. . . .

  Another respect in which our situation so exactly resembles that of France on the eve of the Revolution, is, the fleeing from the country in every direction. When I was in Norfolk, there were four hundred persons, generally young men, labourers, carpenters, wheelwrights, millwrights, smiths and bricklayers, most of them with some money, and some farmers and others with good round sums. These people were going to Quebec, in timber-ships, and from Quebec, by land, into the United States. They had been told that they would not be suffered to land in the United States from board ship. The roguish villains had deceived them; but no matter; they will get into the United States; and going through Canada will do them good, for it will teach them to detest everything belonging to it. Those that have most money go direct to the United States. From the Thames, and from the several ports down the Channel, about two thousand have gone this spring. All the flower of the labourers of the east of Sussex, and west of Kent, will be culled out and sent off in a short time. From Glasgow, the sensible Scotch are pouring out amain. The United States form another England without its unbearable taxes, its insolent game-laws, its intolerable deadweight, and its tread-mills.

  William Cobbett, Rural Rides (1830, 1853)

  RURAL WORKERS

  The small peasantry also was ruined when the former union of industrial and agricultural work was dissolved, the abandoned fields thrown together into large farms, and the small peasants superseded by the overwhelming competition of the large farmers. Instead of being landowners or leaseholders, as they had been hitherto, they were now obliged to hire themselves as labourers to the large farmers or the landlords. . . . The perpetual improvement of machinery made it impossible for manufacture to absorb the whole surplus of the agricultural population. From this time forward, the distress which had hitherto existed only in the manufacturing districts, and then only at times, appeared in the agricultural districts too. The twenty-five years’ struggle with France came to an end at about the same time; the diminished production at the various seats of the wars, the shutting off of imports, and the necessity for providing for the British army in Spain, had given English agriculture an artificial prosperity, and had besides withdrawn to the army vast numbers of workers from their ordinary occupations. This check upon the import trade, the opportunity for exportation, and the military demand for workers, now suddenly came to an end; and the necessary consequence was what the English call agricultural distress. The farmers had to sell their corn at low prices, and could, therefore, pay only low wages. . . .

  From this time [1830s] the agricultural districts became the headquarters of permanent, as the manufacturing had long been of periodic, pauperism; and the modification of the Poor Law was the first measure which the State was obliged to apply to the daily increasing impoverishment of the country parishes. . . .

  What sort of life these people lead may be imagined; their food scanty and bad, their clothing ragged, their dwellings cramped and desolate, small, wretched huts, with no comforts whatever; and, for young people, lodging-houses, where men and women are scarcely separated, and illegitimate intercourse thus provoked. One or two days without work in the course of a month must inevitably plunge such people into the direst want. Moreover, they cannot contrive to raise wages, because they are scattered, and if one alone refuses to work for low wages, there are dozens out of work, or supported by the rates, who are thankful for the most trifling offer, while to him who declines work every other form of relief than the hated workhouse is refused by the Poor Law guardians as to a lazy vagabond; for the guardians are the very farmers from whom or from whose neighbours and acquaintances alone he can get work. . . .

  One especially barbaric cruelty against the working class is embodied in the Game Laws, which are more stringent than in any other country, while the game is plentiful beyond all conception. . . . The labourer lays snares, or shoots here and there a piece of game. It does not injure the landlord as a matter of fact, for he has a vast superfluity, and it brings the poacher a meal for himself and his starving family. But if he is caught he goes to jail, and for a second offence receives at the least seven years’ transportation. From the severity of these laws arise the frequent bloody conflicts with the gamekeepers, which lead to a number of murders every year.

  Friedrich Engels, The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844 (1845; trans. F.K. Wischnewetzky, 1885)

  COLD COMFORT

  I was born [c. 1820] at Wimbush, near Saffron Walden, in Essex. My father was a labouring man, earning nine shillings a week at the best of times; but often his wages were reduced to seven shillings.

  There was a wonderful large family of us – eleven was born, but we died down to six. I remember, one winter, we was very bad off, for we boys could get no employment, and no-one in the family was working but father. He only got fourteen pence a day to keep eight of us in firing and everything. It was a hard matter to get enough to eat.

  One very cold day, that we had nothing at all in the house, my mother called me. ‘Bill,’ says she, ‘you must go out and beg a few turnips for dinner today, for we have nothing to eat.’

  I took a bag, and presently I lit on a farmer, and said to him, ‘I’ve come out to ask for a few turnips, sir, if you’ll please to give ’em me.’

  ‘You can go down the field,’ he says, ‘and pull some, if you can get ’em up.’

  I went; but the ground was so hard, I was forced to cut ’em out with a bill-hook. When I brought them home we had to thaw them before the fire before we could pare them for boiling.

  At last, mother went off to the church parson, and stated the case to him how she was situated. He put his hand in his pocket and pulled out a shilling, and ordered her to go to a woman as kep’ a little shop, and get half a bushel of bread baked. She got besides a lapful of broken victuals, that the cook looked up for her; and when she came home, she found us still cooking the frozen turnips, and little expecting such a dinner! Before we’d cleared the table father come in; and mother sat down as soon as we had all finished and read us a chapter in the Book – where it says the Lord will provide for us; and that is what made me remember about it.

  Anon., ‘An Autobiography of a Navvy’, Macmillan’s Magazine, Vol. V (1861–2)

  WEST COUNTRY POEMS

  ‘ECLOGUE: THE COMMON A-TOOK IN’

  Thomas
>
  Good morn t’ye John. How b’ye?

  how b’ye? Zoo you be gwaïn to market, I do zee.

  Why, you be quite a-lwoaded wi’ your geese.

  John

  Ees, Thomas, ees.

  Why, I’m a-getten rid ov ev’ry goose

  An’ goslen I’ve a-got; an’ what is woose,

  I fear that I must zell my little cow.

  Thomas

  How zoo, then, John? Why, what’s the matter now?

  What, can’t ye get along? B’ye run aground?

  An’ can’t pay twenty shillings vor a pound?

  What, can’t ye put a lwoaf on shelf?

  John

  Ees, now;

  But I do fear I shan’t ’ithout my cow.

  No; they do meän to teäke the moor in, I do hear,

  An’ twill be soon begun upon;

  Zoo I must zell my bit o’s stock to-year,

  Because they woon’t have any groun’ to run upon.

  Thomas

  Why, what d’ye tell o’? I be very zorry

  To hear what they be gwaïn about;

  But yet I s’pose there’ll be a ’lotment vor ye,

  When they do come to mark it out.

  John

  No; not vor me, I fear. An’ if there should,

  Why ‘twoulden be so handy as ’tis now;

  Vor ’tis the common that do do me good,

  The run vor my vew geese, or vor my cow.

  Thomas

  Ees, that’s the job; why ’tis a handy thing

  To have a bit o’ common, I do know,

  To put a little cow upon in Spring,

  The while woone’s bit ov orcha’d grass do grow.

  John

  Aye, that’s the thing, you zee. Now I do mow

  My bit o’grass, an’ meäke a little rick;

  An’ in the zummer, which do grow,

  My cow do run in common vor to pick

  A bleäde or two o’ grass, if she can vind ’em,

  Vor tother cattle don’t leäve much behind ’em.

  Zoo in the evenen, we do put a lock

  O’ nice fresh grass avore the wicket;

  An’ she do come at vive or zix o’clock,

  As constant as the zun, to pick it.

  An’ then, besides the cow, why we do let

  Our geese run out among the emmet hills; [ant-hills]

  An’ then when we do pluck ’em, we do get

  Vor zeäle zome veathers an’ zome quills;

  An’ in the winter we do fat ’em well,

  An’ car ’em to the market vor to zell

  To gentlevo’ks, vor we don’t avvword

  To put a goose a-top ov ouer bwoard;

  But we do get our feäst – vor we be eäble

  To clap the giblets up a-top o’teäble.

  Thomas

  An’ I don’t know o’ many better things

  Than geese’s heads and gizzards, lags and wings.

  John

  An’ then, when I ha’ nothen else to do,

  Why I can teäke my hook an’ gloves, an’ goo

  To cut a lot o’ vuzz and briars [furze]

  Vor heten ovens, or vor lighten viers.

  An’ when the childern be too young to eärn

  A penny, they can g’out in zunny weather,

  An’ run about, an’ get together

  A bag o’ cow-dung vor to burn.

  Thomas

  ’Tis handy to live near a common;

  But I’ve a-zeed, an’ I’ve a-zaid,

  That if a poor man got a bit o’ bread,

  They’ll try to teäke it vrom en.

  But I were twold back tother day,

  That they be got into a way

  O’ letten bits o’ groun’ out to the poor.

  John

  Well, I do hope ’tis true, I’m sure;

  An’ I do hope that they will do it here,

  Or I must goo to workhouse, I do fear.

  ‘THE WHITE ROAD UP ATHIRT THE HILL’

  When hot-beamed zuns do strik right down,

  An’ burn our zweaty feäzen brown;

  An’ zunny slopes, a-lyen nigh,

  Be backed by hills so blue’s the sky;

  Then, while the bells do sweetly cheem [jingle]

  Upon the champen high-necked team,

  How lively, wi’ a friend, do seem

  The white road up athirt the hill. [athwart, across]

  The zwellen downs, wi’ chalky tracks

  A-climmen up their zunny backs,

  Do hide green meäds an’ zedgy brooks,

  An’ clumps o’ trees wi’ glossy rooks,

  An’ hearty vo’k to laugh an’ zing,

  An’ parish churches in a string,

  Wi’ tow’rs o’ merry bells to ring,

  An’ white roads up athirt the hills.

  At feäst, when uncle’s vo’k do come

  To spend the day wi’ us at hwome,

  An’ we do lay upon the bwoard

  The very best we can avvword,

  The wolder woones do talk an’ smoke,

  An’ younger woones do plaÿ an’ joke,

  An’ in the evenen all our vo’k

  Do bring ’em gwaïn athirt the hill.

  An’ while the green do zwarm wi’ wold

  An’ young, so thick as sheep in vwold,

  The bellows in the blacksmith’s shop,

  An’ miller’s moss-green wheel do stop,

  An’ lwonesome in the wheelwright’s shed

  ’S a-left the wheelless waggon-bed;

  While zwarms o’ comen friends do tread

  The white road down athirt the hill.

  An’ when the winden road so white

  A-climmen up the hills in zight

  Do leäd to pleäzen, east or west, [places]

  The vust a-known, an’ loved the best,

  How touchen in the zunsheen’s glow,

  Or in the sheädes that clouds do draw

  Upon the zunburnt downs below,

  ’S the white road up athirt the hill.

  What peacevul hollows here the long

  White roads do windy round among!

  Wi’ deäiry cows in woody nooks,

  An’ haymeäkers among their pooks, [conical stacks of hay]

  An’ housen that the trees do screen

  Vrom zun an’ sight by boughs o’ green

  Young blushen beauty’s hwomes between

  The white roads up athirt the hills.

  William Barnes, Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect (1st edn, 1844)

  ‘OUR VILLAGE’

  MAY-DAY

  Cross two fields more, and up a quiet lane, and we are at the Maying, announced far off by the merry sound of music, and the merrier clatter of childish voices. Here we are at the green; a little turfy spot, where three roads meet, close shut in by hedgerows, with a pretty white cottage, and its long slip of a garden at one angle. I had no expectation of scenery quite so compact, so like a glade in a forest; it is quite a cabinet picture, with green trees for the frame. In the midst grows a superb horse-chestnut, in the full glory of its flowery pyramids, and from the trunk of the chestnut the May-houses commence. They are covered alleys built of green boughs, decorated with garlands and great bunches of flowers, the gayest that blow – lilacs, guelder-roses, peonies, tulips, stocks – hanging down like chandeliers among the dancers; for of dancers, gay dark-eyed young girls in straw bonnets and white gowns, and their lovers in their Sunday attire, the May-houses were full. The girls had mostly the look of extreme youth, and danced well and quietly like ladies – too much so: I should have been glad to see less elegance and more enjoyment; and their partners, though not altogether so graceful, were as decorous and as indifferent as young gentlemen. It was quite like a ball-room, as pretty and almost as dull. Outside was the fun. It is the outside, the upper gallery of the world, that has that good thing. There were children laughing, eating, trying to cheat, and being cheated,
round an ancient and practised vendor of oranges and gingerbread; and on the other side of the tree lay a merry group of old men, in coats almost as old as themselves, and young men in no coats at all, excluded from the dance by the disgrace of a smock-frock. Who would have thought of etiquette finding its way into the May-houses! That group would have suited [the Dutch artist] Teniers; it smoked and drank a little, but it laughed a great deal more. There were a few decent matronly-looking women, too, sitting in a cluster; and young mothers strolling about with infants in their arms; and ragged boys peeping through the boughs at the dancers; and the bright sun shining gloriously on all this innocent happiness.

  A COUNTRY CRICKET MATCH

  I doubt if there be any scene in the world more animating or delightful than a cricket match! I do not mean a set match at Lord’s ground for money, hard money, between a certain number of gentlemen and players, as they are called, people who make a trade of that noble sport, and degrade it into an affair of bettings, and hedgings, and cheatings, it may be, like boxing or horse-racing . . . No! the cricket that I mean is a real solid old-fashioned match between neighbouring parishes, where each attacks the other for honour and a supper, glory and half a crown [2s 6d] a man. . . . Our country lads, accustomed to the flail or the hammer (your blacksmiths are capital hitters), have the free use of their arms; they know how to move their shoulders; and they can move their feet too – they can run; then they are so much better made, so much more athletic, and yet so much lissomer – to use a Hampshire phrase which deserves at least to be good English. Here and there, indeed, one meets with an old Etonian who retains his boyish love for that game which formed so considerable a branch of his education; some even preserve their boyish proficiency, but in general it wears away like the Greek, quite as certainly, and almost as fast. . . . No! a village match is the thing, where our highest officer, our conductor (to borrow a musical term), is but a little farmer’s second son; where a day labourer is our bowler, and a blacksmith our long-stop; where the spectators consist of the retired cricketers, the veterans of the green, the careful mothers, the girls, and all the boys of two parishes, together with a few amateurs, little above them in rank, and not at all in pretension; where laughing and shouting and the very ecstasy of merriment and good humour prevail – such a match, in short, as I attended yesterday, at the expense of getting twice wet through, and as I would attend tomorrow at the certainty of having that ducking doubled.