It takes one and sixpence for fuel. A young family
would keep the parents busy to make ends meet in the best of times. In
case of the mill running short time I should think they would
persistently refuse to meet. No signs of distress, not the least were
apparent anywhere. The mill hands trooping past looked clean, rosy and
cheerful, and were decently clad. The grounds around the factory were
beautiful and very nicely kept, and beautiful also were the grounds
about the great house. I felt sorry that there were no little garden
plots about the tenement houses occupied by the operatives; so when hard
times come they will have no potatoes or vegetables of their own to help
them to tide over the times of scant wages. How I do wish that the
large-hearted and generous proprietors of these works could take this
matter into consideration.
People waiting at the station talked among themselves of hard times, of
farms that were run down, that would not yield the rent, not to speak of
leaving anything for the tenants to live on. There was no complaint made
of the landlords; the land was blamed for not producing enough. Of
course, these people ought to know, but the fields everywhere looked
like garden ground.
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