‘The least work and the most money,’ however, is a maxim not confined to the agricultural labourer.  Recently I had occasion to pass through a busy London street in the West-end where the macadam of the roadway was being picked up by some score of men, and, being full of the subject of labour, I watched the process.  Using the right hand as a fulcrum and keeping it stationary, each navvy slowly lifted his pick with the left half-way up, about on a level with his waistcoat, when the point of the pick was barely two feet above the ground.  He then let it fall—­simply by its own weight—­producing a tiny indentation such as might be caused by the kick of one’s heel It required about three such strokes, if they could so called strokes, to detach one single small stone.  After that exhausting labor the man stood at ease for a few minutes, so that there were often three or four at once staring about them, while several others lounged against the wooden railing placed to keep vehicles back.

A more irritating spectacle it would be hard to imagine.  Idle as much agricultural labour is, it is rarely so lazy as that.  How contractors get their work done, if that is a sample, it is a puzzle to understand.  The complaint of the poor character of the work performed by the agricultural labourer seems also true of other departments, where labour—­pure and simple labour of thews and sinews—­is concerned.  The rich city merchant, who goes to his office daily, positively works harder, in spite of all his money.  So do the shopmen and assistants behind their counters; so do the girls in drapers’ shops, standing the whole day and far into the evening when, as just observed, the fields have been dark for hours; so, indeed, do most men and women who earn their bread by any other means than mere bodily strength.

But the cattle-men, carters, and shepherds, men with families and settled, often seem to take an interest in their charges, in the cows, horses, or sheep; some of them are really industrious, deserving men.  The worst feature of unionism is the lumping of all together, for where one man is hardly worth his salt, another is a good workman.  It is strange that such men as this should choose to throw in their lot with so many who are idle—­whom they must know to be idle—­thus jeopardising their own position for the sake of those who are not worth one-fifth the sacrifice the agricultural cottager must be called upon to make in a strike.  The hard-working carter or cattle-man, according to the union theory, is to lose his pay, his cottage, his garden, and get into bad odour with his employer, who previously trusted him, and was willing to give him assistance, in order that the day labourer who has no responsibilities either of his own or his master’s, and who has already the best end of the stick, should enjoy still further opportunities for idleness.

CHAPTER XXII

THE LABOURER’S CHILDREN.  COTTAGE GIRLS