"THIS ENGLAND"

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 100, 30 April 1927, Page 17

"THIS ENGLAND"

THE FAEMER

COUNTRYSIDE PHILOSOPHY

XIV.

; (By Edgar Wallace.) The snow it fell down on a father and mother, .As up to the workhouso they helped ono anothor. Tho poor old man cried In a volco full of sorrow: "Our children will learn of this como-down with horrow. Toung Harry's In Dartmoor; a seven ho'a doln', And Alfred's .In Hamvcll —young wlmraln his ruin. In the Infirmary Jim's a bit silly. And Maude has a business on Piccadilly." The tears of the father they couldn't Bo hided. "Thank Gawd that our chlldron is amply provided I ) let's lay our old bones in tho workhouso so cruel, An' live till we're ninety on ratepayers' gruel." —''Tho Ballad of the lump." I mot Mm on a country road, and I thought hfi was a tramp who had stolen a ready-made suit of clothes. Hia eye was. a little wild and he walked unsteadily. Ho was sober enough, but he confessod that ho had "fairly put it away last night. Him and a Birmingham chap and a fellor from Poplar. His; profession? "Farmih'," he said without a blush, I will not arouse to resentment the humanitarian society or Red municipality whose experiment ho is by sotting down in cold print their style and title. All over the couutry'arc well-meaning but ill-balanced poople who believo that farming is the natural and proper outlot for its unemployables. Back to the land is only the feeblest bleat of a slogan,! but there are various associations that are plodding along the sticky path of illusion. . "Farmin'—hard work! Diggin' an' ditchin'," said tho victim. "Slave drivin'—a dog's life!" In fact, unpleasant. Ho by trade was a plumber. A plumber? Well, not exactly a plumber, a sort of plumber's mate.. Anyway, he once worked for a plumber, y Before that he was.in the docks, and after that ho had been a watchman on a road-mending job. Also his misguided relatives had once set him up in the fried fish and stewed eels business. ' "Eels never die till sunset," ho said, zoologically. The business was a failure from some cause—-he was rather vague about this —and then a' man he knew started backing horses on a system. The system was good, but 'iho horses refused to conform to it. "It's a pretty hard lifo farmin'. I don't know how theso farm labourers stick it. No life, no cinemas, nothin'! Just gettin''up in the mornin' an' wo'rkin' all day.. Lord lovo a duck, what a life!" Possibly, I suggested, there wcro compensations—a healthy lifo for tho children, a freedom from care, congenial employment in the open air. "A pal of mine wont out to Canada," he went off at a tangent. "Took his wife and family. A nice chap, ono of the best bird fanciers in Barkin'. But somebody put this silly idea in his head about Canada, and somebody else paid the money for tho faro, an' ho pops off. Arid where do you think they sent liimt To a placed called " I told him that ho probably meant "Manitoba," "That's right—you've heard about it—Manitoba. Thoy put him in the country in a wood house; litre! to get his watey out of a well. No life— nothin'." ■--.••.. "Life" is, of course, essential to tho happiness of tfie townsman. It is mado up of seeing, people walk down the street, and the sound of motor-buses ana trams, and the final "Star" with all the results. And a picturo palace round the corner; "Soft Bodios" on Mon., Tues., "Wed., and "She Sold Her Soul for Extras" on Thurs.,' Fri., Sat. Something innocuous. Something innocuous, with all the dirt in tho title. "They couldn't .stick it, so thoy came back; : As Joo said: 'Wove only got to live once—let's havo a bit of Life!' ■ Poor old Joo, he's in tho lump now—him an' his missus and the three children —four, as a matter of fact, and one coming." "The Lump,'' I would explain, is tho workhouso. "Lloyd George is behind all this. Didn't he say this was goin' to be a country fit for horoos? Is it? No." He was thirty-eight years of ago, but he hadn't been to tho war. "Let them that mako tho wars fight 'em," he said, but offered no explanation! as to his escape. Indeed, ho returned to the question of farming. "tt's unhealthy it stands to reason it must be—out of doors in all sorts of weather. Up before it's daylight, dodgin' here and dodgin' there.' Lookin after pigs, and what not. You'ro never done! -Itf's not like plumbin'. There's your job, and when it's over it's over. But farmin' is blackleg's' work. You'jo no sooner finished mendin' a fence— which is carpentry—than you'ro shovollin' muck into a cart—which is transport. You take it from mo, no man can be a farm labourer without blackloggin' on some other union." ' ' ■. He had a wife and a number of children (he wasn't quite certain how many) in the care of tho Guardians. Ho came from one of those generous municipalities that never spoil their own ship for a ha'porth of somebody else's tar. "I've been doin' this farmin' for nearly two months. Tho food's not bad —but the life! I'm blest if these country yokels didn't start complainin' to tho police because a lot of our boys had a bit of a beanfeast tho other night! Thoy're not used to Life. There was no harm in it—a lot of us went down to tho pub and had a bit of a sing-song. There was a sort of fight, but nothin' that was wrong, if you understand me.- They don't expect us to go farmin' in this dead-and-alive hole and not try to enjoy ourselves when we can, do they?" On the science of farming he is something of an authority. Pigs interested him. I .told him tho story of tho labouror explaining to a moro obtuse friend tho theory of transmigration of souls. . . "When you die, Fred, your soul goes into something else—maybe into a pig. And then I comes along ono day and looks in the sty an' says: 'Bless my aoul, there's old Fred! He ain't changed a bit!'" My farming acquaintance was not amused. , "You ought to see the stuff they eat!"' ... That is what he know about pigs. As to such matters as root-crops— "Mind you, I know a lot. about gardenin'. I used to go hoppin' regularly, so did my mother and- missus. That's different. You all pull together there- —even tho kids do soniothing. Mind you; I never did mucli because I hurt my hand—foil over a hop pole first day. But between us wo used to mako a good thing of it. This kind of farmin' is different— messin' about with carts an' horses an' spades. You go an' work' for a day in the* fields, turnin' over earth . . . by dinner time you're fit to drop :f the foreman's anywhere about. You can havo a miko when he's away—but .that man never thinks of goin' away. There's some talk of gcttin' up a petition to the guardians about it. Tho proletariat are bein' put on. fcjlave' driyin' and nothin' else!" But (here he brightonod) ho was giving up farming. A gentleman he knew had written to him offering him a job.

Tho gentleman in question sold unpatent medicines at street comers, and ho wanted somebody to go round with him. _As a matter of fact, our friend's retirement from agriculturo was not entirely volitionary. Thero had been some trouble at the farm about illegal absences.

"I ought to have been in last night, but mo an' one of those clod-'oppurs had a few drinks last night an' I slept at his house," he volunteered. "This old so-and-so in charge of tho farm is bound to get saucy about it—but I've got mo answer ready for him! 'Tho now job ain't much in the way of money, but thank Gawd I'll see a bit of life!" '

I left him at the entrance of the Farm Settlement and walked back to tho village. I had intended interviewing tho superintendent, and had come down for that purpose. , Somehow it did not seem necessary now.