A third example is a rakish-looking lad just rising into manhood.  Such young men are very much in demand and he would not have the slightest difficulty in obtaining employment, yet he is constantly out of work.  When a boy he began by summoning the carter where he was engaged for cuffing him, charging the man with an assault.  It turned out to be a trumpery case, and the Bench advised his parents to make him return and fulfil his contract.  His parents thought differently of it.  They had become imbued with an inordinate sense of their own importance.  They had a high idea of the rights of labour; Jack, in short, was a good deal better than his master, and must be treated with distinguished respect.  The doctrines of the Union countenanced the deduction; so the boy did not return.  Another place was found for him.

In the course of a few months he came again before the Bench.  The complaint was now one of wrongful dismissal, and a claim for a one pound bonus, which by the agreement was to have been paid at the end of the year if his conduct proved satisfactory.  It was shown that his conduct had been the reverse of satisfactory; that he refused to obey orders, that he ‘cheeked’ the carters, that he ran away home for a day or two, and was encouraged in these goings on by the father.  The magistrates, always on the side of peace, endeavoured to procure a reconciliation, the farmer even paid down the bonus, but it was of no use.  The lad did not return.

With little variations the same game has continued ever since.  Now it is he that complains, now it is his new master; but any way there is always a summons, and his face is as familiar in the court as that of the chairman.  His case is typical.  What is a farmer to do who has to deal with a rising generation full of this spirit?

Then there are the regular workhouse families, who are perpetually applying for parochial relief.  From the eldest down to the youngest member they seem to have no stamina; they fall ill when all others are well, as if afflicted with a species of paralysis that affects body, mind, and moral sense at once.  If the phrase may be used without irreverence, there is no health in them.  The slightest difficulty is sufficient to send an apparently strong, hale man whining to the workhouse.  He localises his complaint in his foot, or his arm, or his shoulder; but, in truth, he does not know himself what is the matter with him.  The real illness is weakness of calibre—­a looseness of fibre.  Many a labourer has an aching limb from rheumatism, and goes to plough all the same; many a poor cottage woman suffers from that prevalent agony, and bravely gets through her task, and keeps her cottage tidy.  But these people cannot do it—­they positively cannot.  The summer brings them pain, the winter brings pain, their whole life is one long appeal ad misericordiam.