The superior thrift of the north was shown in clothes as well as food, the midland and southern labourer at the end of the century buying all his clothes, the northerner making them almost all at home; there were many respectable families in the north who had never bought a pair of stockings, coat, or waistcoat in their lives, and a purchased coat was considered a mark of extravagance and pride.

Perhaps the most remarkable feature of Young's dietary is that green vegetables are absolutely ignored. The peasant was supposed to need them as little as in the Middle Ages.

However, Young admits that very few labourers lived as cheaply as this, and he found the actual ordinary budget for the same family to be:—

£s.d.
Food, per week, 7s. 6d.; per year 19100
Beer " 1s. 6d.; " 3180
Soap and candles150
Rent1100
Clothes2100
Fuel200
Illness, &c.100
Infant2120
————
£3450
=========

This, with the same Income as before, left him with a surplus of £3 10s. 0d.; but as it was not likely his wife could work all the year round, or that both his eldest children should be boys, it appears that his expenses must often have exceeded his income. This being so, it is not surprising that he was often drunken and reckless, and ready to come on the parish for relief. To labour incessantly, often with wife and boys, to live very poorly, yet not even make both ends meet, was enough to kill all spirit in any one.

A great evil from which the labourer suffered was the restrictions thrown on him of settling in another parish. If he desired to take his labour to a better market he often found it closed to him. His marriage was discouraged,[473] because a single man did not want a cottage and a married one did. To ease the rates there was open war against cottages, and many were pulled down.[474] If a labourer in a parish to which he did not legally belong signified his intention of marrying, he immediately had notice to quit the parish and retire to his own, unless he could procure a certificate that neither he nor his would be chargeable. If he went to his own parish he came off very badly, for they didn't want him, and cottages being scarce he probably had to put up with sharing one with one or more families. Sensible men cried out for the total abolition of the poor laws, the worst effects of which were still to be felt.

Yet there was a considerable migration of labour at harvest time when additional hands were needed. Labourers came from neighbouring counties, artisans left their workshops in the towns, Scots came to the Northern counties, Welshmen to the western, and Irishmen appeared in many parts; and they were as a rule supplied by a contractor.[475]

London was regarded as a source of great evil to the country by attracting the young and energetic thither. It used, men said, to be no such easy matter to get there when a stage coach was four or five days creeping 100 miles and fares were high; but in 1770 a country fellow 100 miles from London jumped on a coach in the morning and for 8s. or 10s. got to town by night, 'and ten times the boasts are sounded in the ears of country fools by those who have seen London to induce them to quit their healthy clean fields for a region of dirt, stink, and noise.' A prejudice might well have been entertained against the metropolis at this time, for it literally devoured the people of England, the deaths exceeding the births by 8,000 a year. One of the causes that had hitherto kept people from London was the dread of the small-pox, but that was now said to be removed by inoculation. Among the troubles farmers had to contend with were the audacious depredations caused by poachers, generally labourers, who swarmed in many villages. They took the farmer's horses out of his fields after they had done a hard day's work and rode them all night to drive the game into their nets, blundering over the hedges, sometimes staking the horses, riding over standing corn, or anything that was cover for partridges, and when they had sold their ill-gotten game spent the money openly at the nearest alehouse. Then they would go back and work for the farmers they had robbed, drunk, asleep, or idle the whole day. The subscription packs of foxhounds were also a great nuisance, many of the followers being townsmen who bored through hedges and smashed the gates and stiles, conduct not unknown to-day. In spite of these drawbacks the long period of great abundance from 1715 to 1765 and the consequent cheapness of food with an increase of wages was attended with a great improvement in the condition and habits of the people. Adam Smith refers to 'the peculiarly happy circumstances of the country'; Hallam described the reign of George II as 'the most prosperous period that England has ever experienced'[476]; and it was Young's opinion about 1770 that England was in a most rich and flourishing situation, 'her agriculture is upon the whole good and spirited and every day improving, her industrious poor are well fed, clothed, and lodged at reasonable rates, the prices of all necessaries being moderate, our population increasing, the price of labour generally high.'[477] The great degree of luxury to which the country had arrived within a few years 'is not only astonishing but almost dreadful to think of. Time was when those articles of indulgence which now every mechanic aims at the possession of were enjoyed only by the baron or lord.'[478] Great towns became the winter residence of those who could not afford London, and the country was said to be everywhere deserted, an evil largely attributed to the improvement of posting and coaches. The true country gentleman was seldom to be found, the luxuries of the age had softened down the hardy roughness of former times and the 'country, like the capital, is one scene of dissipation.' The private gentleman of £300 or £400 a year must have his horses, dogs, carriages, pictures, and parties, and thus goes to ruin. The articles of living, says the same writer, were 100 per cent. dearer than some time back. This is a very different picture from that in which Young represents every one rushing into farming, but no doubt depicts one phase of national life.

An excellent observer[479] noticed in 1792 that the preceding forty or fifty years had witnessed the total destruction in England of the once common type of the small country squire. He was:—

'An independent gentleman of £300 per annum who commonly appeared in a plain drab or plush coat, large silver buttons, a jockey cap, and rarely without boots. His travels never exceeded the distance of the county town, and that only at assize or session time, or to attend an election. Once a week he commonly dined at the next market town with the attorneys and justices. He went to church regularly, read the weekly journal, settled the parochial disputes, and afterwards adjourned to the neighbouring alehouse, where he generally got drunk for the good of his country. He was commonly followed by a couple of greyhounds and a pointer, and announced his arrival at a neighbour's house by smacking his whip and giving a view halloo. His drink was generally ale, except on Christmas Day, the Fifth of November, or some other gala day, when he would make a bowl of strong brandy. The mansion of one of these squires was of plaster striped with timber, not unaptly called callimanco work, or of red brick with large casemented bow windows; a porch with seats in it and over it a study: the eaves of the house well inhabited by swallows, and the court set round with hollyhocks; near the gate a horse-block for mounting. The hall was furnished with flitches of bacon, and the mantelpiece with guns and fishing-rods of different dimensions, accompanied by the broadsword, partisan, and dagger borne by his ancestor in the Civil Wars. Against the wall was posted King Charles's Golden Rules, Vincent Wing's Almanac and a portrait of the Duke of Marlborough; in his window lay Baker's Chronicle, Foxe's Book of Martyrs, Glanvill On Apparitions, Quincey's Dispensatory, The Complete Justice, and a Book of Farriery. In a corner by the fireside stood a large wooden two-armed chair with a cushion, and within the chimney corner were a couple of seats. Here at Christmas he entertained his tenants, assembled round a glowing fire made of the roots of trees; and told and heard the traditionary tales of the village about ghosts and witches while a jorum of ale went round. These men and their houses are no more.'