SUPERSTITIOUS FOLK

Greymouth Evening Star, 28 November 1927, Page 9

SUPERSTITIOUS FOLK

: -O- ——— ENGLISH COUNTRYSIDE LIFE. The subject, “The Folk of the Countryside,” was dealt with at the recent Church Congress at Ipswich from three angles—the village, the country town, and the holiday resort. Mr. R. Eaton White, deputy-lieuten-ant for Suffolk, describing some aspects of village life, dealt first with the relations of employer and employed These, he said, were almost always friendly, and many of them took a very real interest in the farm and its prosperity. Very few townsmen had any idea of the character and capacity of the agricultural worker. Unfortunately, it was too common to find him the subject of ridicule and contempt in the papers. The labourer shared with another most valuable class in the village—and in the town, t 0 —the domestic servant, a reputation for stupidity and inefficiency which excited contempt in the mind ot the ignorant, and which prevented many a man from remaining .on the land, and many a girl from going into domestic service —one of the most useful, honourable, and, to the considerate employer, the most respected of all professions, and on whose numbers the happiness of squire or farmer so much depended. “Of the mothers of the village I must speak with diffidence, but with all re. spect,” said Mr. White, “for I constantly see the children of a family well clothed and well fed on 30 shillings a week. Before the war almosl all brewed their own beer, but while they fervently believe that home brewed beer will help you in the dry hours of harvest, drunkenness is cer thinly not their weakness. Shall J shock this assembly if I quote with ap proval the words of a former rector o. ours? ‘lt isn’t the people who brev the good stuff that are to blame, but