A FAITHFUL LABOURER.
An unexpected illustration of the continuity of tradition in rural life is worth recording from Lincolnshire. I found new buildings being put up to accommodate the immigrant workers who come for the gathering of certain crops, notably the seed of root crops. A number of these men are Irish. They come over to Derbyshire and its neighbourhood for the
• hay harvest, and on to Lincolnshire for seed gathering. They work well and hard ; and as in the old days eat incredible quantities of potatoes, which they prefer " with a bone in the middle," that is not cooked quite through. these are supplied free. One, might call that labour casual ; but it is often very far from that. One Irish worker, already booked for a stay in one wooden house now in building, is the grandson of a man who first came over for summer work of the same sort in the same place. For three generations his family have kept faithful to the one farm where they
accumulate enough wealth to enrich their winter days in Ireland !
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