A Dying Race
Below the woodman in rank, and not rightly to be called a woodman, is the copse-worker, or copser; a piece-worker, free to work for any one who will give him a job. He is a skilled craftsman, one of a dying race, for his boys are kept too long at school ever to take kindly to his calling. This is his constant complaint: and he will air his views freely on "eddication" and the making of "scholards." He himself had only enough learning drubbed into him to allow him to make every night an entry of his day's work—so many bavins, so many bundles of pea-sticks, so many fencing-poles. His daily earnings fluctuate with the quality of the wood, which he is sure to declare is nothing like what it was in the days of his youth.
