And crowded knees sit cowering o'er the sparks,
Retires, content to quake so they be warmed."
One must see the children eating bread and butter for dinner, and drinking the hot wash they call tea; one must note the bleared eyes, the scrofulous skin, the ulcerated legs, the rheumatic agonized bodies,—one must see these things and a hundred others for oneself to realize the depth of their miserable poverty.
The benefit caused by any fresh industry which will give employment to a few hands, and thus bring a little runlet of the vast wealth of the outlying world into this impoverished district, may be seen in the villages which form the parish of Hurstmonceux. In this neighbourhood about twenty persons find profitable employment in making the flat baskets so much used for agricultural purposes,—such, for instance, as bringing potatoes from the fields. Many are sent over to France, the Hurstmonceux makers having established a reputation through one of the first of their number obtaining a prize at the Exhibition of 1851.
In speaking of Sussex commons, I have described how, in Heathfield and its neighbourhood, chicken-fattening has grown up into a large trade. The men who collect the chickens from the cottages which fringe the edges of the numerous commons, or which lie hidden in out-of-the-way lanes, are called higglers. You can scarcely traverse any road in this locality without meeting one of them,—lean sinewy men or youths, carrying an enormous wicker cage, full of chickens, on their shoulders, and a stout staff in their hands. Trudging along at one pace, they bear the burden of life in a brave though somewhat moody fashion.
Even among those who are better off, one is oppressed by a sense of the poverty of the Weald. The fires of wood and small-coal, the inferiority of almost every article of diet,—everything, in fact, repeats the same sad tale. However, this very poverty seems to tell in favour of the few tradesfolk to be found in every village, for it has prevented a rush of competitors. Unlike the poor labourers, who are wholly dependent on the good-will of the employers of the district, most of the tradesmen can afford to be independent of individual customers. As to the artificers—the builder, the wheelwright, the carpenter, or the smith—they are,
