Drunkenness with cider would seem to be so far different than in the case of beer, in that while the latter makes its victim heavy and stupid, the former incites to motion, and leads to quarrelling, fighting, and foolhardiness.
Hence, then, cider so exhilarates the farm labourer that he will do any amount of work if he is constantly plied with it, and all the while that it is but stimulating him, he fancies he is getting strength and vigour from it; but, alas! he is only thus drawing upon his capital; exhaustion follows a hard day’s work got over amid hard drinking, which requires the following day to be spent on the same high-pressure system, or else little will be done. Hence one of our own labourers, during barley mowing at so much per acre, was fain to confess that he “wanted a pint of cider at four o’clock in the morning worse nor any other time of day.”
It happens, then, that as harvest work is wanted to be done expeditiously, it is let out by the piece, by which the labourer gets more money and more cider. But consider, my masters, that, when not under these stimulants, you can only expect from the workman a languid day’s work when the excitement is over; and too often, indeed, the poor man gets a long illness as the result of his forced, that is, stimulated labour, and, if not, such a system of drawing upon his capital—strength—is certain to end in premature old age.
Seeing, however, that the labourer has got to believe that drink keeps up his strength, it too often follows that he concludes that the more he gets of it the better; and hence, as a rule, there is no satisfying him upon this head, and the result is, that the labourer too often keeps himself in that state of thirst and muzziness during his work that almost compels him to seek the public-house when work is done. Here quarrels ensue, and it is a wonder that manslaughter is not more frequently the result. Expelled from the scene of his debauch, he finds his way home, unless, as is not unfrequent, he is “found drowned” in the river by which he may have to pass.
This is no fancied sketch, as it is derived from the sad experience of the author and the result of events in his own parish. On one melancholy occasion it was indeed sad to hear the Coroner, among other remarks, observe that full four-fifths of the inquests in a cider county were the result of drink.
Is there not, then, a heavy responsibility resting upon the farmer in especial connection with cider, while his men are partially paid in this fluid? It is different in the beer-drinking counties, as beer costs more money, and is never allowed in such quantity as cider. Put it down as true that the farmer at times gets more work out of his men by plying them with cider, yet we feel sure he thereby hastens the time when such men can no longer work, and they have then to be chargeable to the parish, if in the mean time nothing worse should happen.
Mechanics are not paid in drink; they purchase what they require out of regular wages, and thus they have the option, which many of them take advantage of, of leaving off strong drink altogether; and though they too are sometimes hard pressed to get a piece of work done, yet, by over-hours, for which they are rightly paid, not, as in the country, wholly by cider, but in money, the business is managed, and the workman can afford extra meat and bread, by which his worn muscles are truly renovated, and not merely stimulated to frantic action as by drink. The great rise in the price of meat, even before cattle disease became rife, is due to the cause that so much more meat has, within the last five years, been eaten by the British workman. In this advance, however, the farm labourer has had no part; he rarely gets meat twice a week, while all this time his wages have advanced so much as 25 per cent., which rise, in nine cases out of ten, is only looked upon as a boon, inasmuch as it enables the recipient to “enjoy himself,” which simply means he has more to spend at the public-house.
We conclude, as the result of experience, that each sack of corn that finds its way to market from a cider county costs 1s. (or 3d. per bushel) in drink, which, though it is produced on the farm, might yet have been sold to produce that amount.
Would it then not be better to sell such farm produce, and, by giving extra money instead of drink to the labourers, and so, by allowing him the option of taking less drink but more meat, gradually to withdraw him from the temptations to get drunk, which beset him under the present system? For, while we feel quite sure that the morbid craving for the public-house has commenced with drinking on the farm, we may be certain that if by any means we can check this system, it will ultimately be a great gain to both master and man.
Where are farm labourers best off? We say in the non-cider counties. In these he has learnt the use of skim-milk and the value of meat. In cider counties the farm labourer despises skim-milk as “poor weak tack, only fit for pigs.” He cannot get meat, as he takes part of his wage in a stimulant which excites him to spend some of his money in falsely “keeping up his strength.”