I asked if there were no regular farm-labourers hired at fixed rates by the year?
"Oh! very few--less now than ever; and there'll be fewer before there'll be more. The farmers don't want to pay the labourers or to pay the landlords; they want the land and the work for nothing, sir,--they do indeed!"
"What does a farm-hand get," I asked, "if he is hired for a long time?"
"Well, permanent men, they'll get 6s. a week with breakfast and dinner, or 7s. maybe, with one meal; and a servant-boy, sir, he'll get 2s. a week or may be 3s. with his board; but it's seldom he gets it."
"Oh, stirabout; and then twice a week coorse Russian or American meat, what they call the 'kitchen,' and they like it better than good meat, sir, because it feeds the pot more."
By this I found he meant that the "coorse meat" gave out more "unctuosity" in the boiling--the meat being always served up boiled in a pot with vegetables, like the "bacon and greens" of the "crackers" in the South.
"Oh, I know a boy got 5s., but by living in his father's house, and working out it was he got it. And then they go over to England to work."
"Oh, it differs, but they do well; 9s. a week, I think, and their board, and straw to sleep on in the stables."
"But doesn't it cost them a good deal to go and come?"
"Oh no; they get cheap rates. They send them from Galway to Dublin like cattle, at £2, 5s. a car, and that makes about 1s. 6d. a head; and then they are taken over on the steamers very cheap. Often the graziers that do large business with the companies, will have a right to send over a number of men free; and they stowaway too; and then on the railways in England they get passes free often from cattle-dealers, specially when they are coming back, and the dealers don't want their passes. They do very well. They'll bring back £7 and £10. I was on a boat once, and there was a man; he was drunk; he was from Galway somewhere, and they took away and kept for him £18, all in good golden sovereigns; that was the most I ever saw. And he was drunk, or who'd ever have known he had it?"
"Do the farmers build houses for the labourers?"
"Build houses, is it! Glory be to God! who ever heard of such a thing? The farmers are a poor proud lot. They'd let a labourer die in the ditch!"