THIS ENGLAND

Evening Star, Issue 19519, 29 March 1927, Page 2

THIS ENGLAND

—■■ XSV.--THE FINER

[Written by ..Edgar Wallace, for the 4 Evening Star.’]

The snow it tell clown on a father and mother, v As up to the workhouse they helped one another. The poor old man cried in a voice of sorrow: “ Our children will learn of this comedown with borrow. "Young Harry’s in Dartmoor: a seven he’s doin’, And Alfred’s in Hamvell—young wimmin his ruin; In the infirmary Jim’s a hit silly, And Maude has a business on Piccadilly.” The tears of the father , they couldn’t : be hided, , “ Thank Gawd that our children is amply provided ! Let’s lay out our old „ hones in the workhouse cruel, An’ live till we ! rc nintly on ratepayers’ gruel.” —‘ The Ballad of the Lump.’

I met him on a country road, and 1 thought he was a tramp who had stolen a ready-made suit of clothes. His eye was a little wild and he walked unsteadily. He was sober enough, but he confessed that ho had “fairly put it away ” last night. Him and a Birmingham chap and a fuller from Poplar.

His profession? “ Farmin’,” he said, without a blush. I will not arouso to resentment the humanitarian society or lied municipality whose experiment ho is by setting down in cold print their style and title.

All over the country are well-mean-ing but ill-balanced people, who believe that farming is the natural and proper outlet for its unemployables. Back to the land is only the feeblest bleat of a slogan; but there aro various associations that are plodding along the sticky path of illusion. “ Farmin’—hard work!_ Diggin’ an’ ditchin’,” said the 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. Before that he was in the docks, and after that he 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,” he said, zoologically. The business was a failure from some cause—he was rather vague about this —and then a man he knew started hacking horses on a System Tha_ system was good, but the horses refused to conform to it.

“ It’s a pretty hard life farmin’. I don’t know how these farm laborers stick it. No life, no cinemas, nothin’! Just gettin’ up in the mornin’ an’ workiV all day. Loi'd love a duck, what a life!”

Possibly, I suggested, there were amnsations —a healthy life for the ren, a freedom from care,_ congenial employment in the open air. “ A pal of mine went out to Canada.” he went off at a tangent. “Took his wife and family. _A nice chap, one of the best bird-fanciers in Barkink But somebody put this silly idea in his head about Canada, and somebody else paid the money for the fare, an’ he pops off. And where do you think they sent him? To a place called ” I told him that he probably meant “Manitoba.”

“That’s right—you’ve heard about it—Manitoba. They put him in the country in a wood house; had to get his water out of a well. No life—nothin’.”

“ Life ” is, of course, essential to the happiness of the townsman. It Is made up of seeing people walk down the streets, and the sound of motor buses and trams, and the final 1 Star ’ with all the results. And a picture palace round the corner: ‘ Soft Bodies ’ on Mon., Tues , Wed., and ‘ She Sold Her Soul for Extras’ on Thurs., Fri., Sat. Something innocuous. Something innocuous, with all the dirt in the title. “ They couldn’t stick it, so they came back. As Joe said: 4 We’ve only got to live once—let’s have a bit of life!’ Poor old Joe, he’s in the lump now—him an’ his missus and the throe children—four, as a matter of fact, and one coming.” “ The Lump,” would would explain, is the workhouse.

“Lloyd George is behind all this. Didn’t he say this was gain’ to be a country fit for heroes? Is it? S’o. ' Ho was thirty-eight years cf age, but he hadn’t been to the war. “ Let them that make the wars fight ’em,” he said-, but offered no explanation as to his escape. Indeed, lie returned to the Question >f laming. “It’s unhealthy; it stands to reason it must be—out of doors _ in all sorts of weather. Tip before ’t’s daylight, dodgin’ here and dodgin’ there. Lookin’ after pigs and what not. You’re never done! It’s not like plumbin’. There’s your job, and when it’s over it’s over. But famin’ is blacklegs’ work. .You’re no sooner finished mendin’ a fence-rwhich is carpentry—than you’re shovellin’ muck into a cart—which is transport. You take it from me, no man can bo a farm laborer without blackleggin’ cn some other union.” He had a wife and a number of children (he wasn’t quite certain how many) in the care of the Guardians. Ho came from one of those generous municipalities that never spoil their own ship for a ba’poith of somebody else’s tar. “I’ve been doin’ this farmin’ for nearly two months. The food’s not bad but the life! I’m blest if these country yokels didn’t start complainin’ to the police because a lot of our boys had a bit of a beanfeast the other night! They’re not used to life. There was no harm in it—a lot of us went down to the pub and had a bit of a sing-song. There was a sort of fight, but nothin’ that was wrong, if you understand mo. They don’t expect us to go farmm m this dead-and-alive hole and not try to enjoy ourselves when we can. do they?” On tho science of farming he is something of an authority. Pigs interested him I told him the story of tho laborer explaining to a more obtuse friend the theory of transmigration of souls. „ , “ When you die, Fred., your soul goes into something else—maybe, into a pig. And then I comes along one day and looks in the sty an’ says: ‘ Bless my soul, there’s old Fred. 1 He ain’t changed a bit !' ” My faming acquaintance was not ; amused. “You ought to see the stuff they cat!” That is what hs knew about pigs. As c such matter' as root crops . “ Mind vou, know a lot about gar linin’. X used ;j go hoppin’ regularly, ,o did my mother - and/ missus. That’s lifferent. You all pull together there -even the kids do something. Mind rou, I neyer did much, because I hurt my band —fell over a hop pole first day. But between us we used to make a good thing of it. This kind of famin’ is different—• essin’ about with carts an’ horses an 1 , spades You go an’ work for a day in the fields turnin' over earth; • • by dinner time you’re fit to drop if the foreman’s anywhere about. You can have a mike when he’s awav —but that man never thinks of goin’ away, There’s some talk of gettin’ up a petition to the Guardians about it. The proletariat are bein’ put o». Slave dnvin’ and nothin’ else!” . 'But ,(bere he brightened) he was giv-

ing up fanning. A gentleman lie knew had written to-liiui offering him a job. T]ie gentleman question sold unpatent medicines u* street corners, and ho wanted somebody to go round with him. As a matter of tact, our friend’s, retirement'from agriculture was not'entirely volitionary. There had been Solno trouble at the farm about illegal absences.

“I ought to,have been in last night, but mo an I ’one of these clod’oppers'haa a few drinks last night an’ 1 slept at his house,” he volunteered. “This old so-atid-su in charge of the farm is bound to get saucy about ic—bat I’ve got me answer ready for him! The new 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 the village, I had intended interviewing the superintendent, and had come down for that purpose. Somehow it did not scorn necessary now.