25 MAY 1872, Page 2

A woman has made by far the most touching and

natural speech on agricultural wages that we have yet seen. At a meet. ing near Caine, called by Lord E. Fitzmaurice, the wife of a labourer named Anne Atter asked leave to say her say, and said it in this curiously resigned, yet plaintive style :—" She had eight children, but three of them were out now. Her husband used to get 9s. a week, but they were much better off now since he had been a milker and worked Sundays ; he now got 12s. a week. But still she felt that the poor were screwed down too hard. They had IS a year to pay house-rent, and it had often gone to her heart when she had only a bit of bread with nothing on't to part out among her children. She was thankful her husband got his 12s. a week through being a milker, but she thought the poor man was screwed down too hard." Even that woman, however, would have been roused by the bird-flappers.