e poor mother has
her trials. Though in the midst of a country teeming with milk, it is
often with the utmost difficulty that she can obtain any for her babe,
if Nature shall have rendered her dependent upon artificial supply. This
has become especially the case of late years, now that so much milk is
sent to London, instead of being retained in the dairy for the
manufacture of butter and cheese. So that it actually happens that the
poor mother in the courts of the metropolis can obtain milk easier than
her far-away sister in those fabulous fields which the city woman has
never seen, and, perhaps, never will. Often in arable districts there
are scarcely any cows kept. No one cares to retail a pennyworth of milk.
It is only by favour, through the interest taken by some farmer's wife,
that it can be got.

Very few agricultural women have a medical man present at their
confinement; they usually entrust themselves to the care of some village
nurse, who has a reputation for skill in such matters, but no
scientifically acquired knowledge--who proceeds by rule of thumb. The
doctor--almost always the parish doctor, though sometimes the club
officer--is not called in till after the delivery. The poor woman will
frequently come downstairs on the fourth day; and it is to this
disregard of proper precautions that the distortions of figure and many
of the illnesses of poor agricultural women are attributable. Nothing
but the severe training they have gone through from childhood
upwards--the exposure to all kinds of weather--the life in the open air,
the physical strength induced by labour, can enable them to support the
strain upon the frame caused by so quickly endeavouring to resume their
household duties. It is probably this reserve of strength which enables
them to recover from so serious a matter so quickly. Certain it is that
very few die from confinement; and yet, from the point of view of the
middle class of society, almost every precaution and every luxury by
them deemed necessary is omitted. Of course, in some instances,
agricultural women whose husbands have, perhaps, worked for one master
from boyhood, receive much more attention than here indicated--wines,
jellies, meat, and so on--but the majority have to rely upon the tender
mercies of the parish. It has been often remarked that the labourer, let
him be in receipt of what wages he will, makes no provision for this,
the most serious and interesting of all domestic even