Both legally and materially Mr.Egan, the tenant-farmer at Woodford, seems to me to have had much the advantage of thousands of his countrymen living and earning their livelihood by their daily labour in such a typical American commonwealth, for example, as Massachusetts.

I have here with me the Seventh Annual Report of the Bureau of Statistics of Massachusetts.

From this I learn that in 1876 the average yearly wages earned by workmen in Massachusetts were $482.72, or in round numbers something over L96.

Out of this amount the Massachusetts workman had to feed, clothe, and house himself, and those dependent on him.
His outlay for rent alone was on the average $109.07, or in round numbers rather less than L22, making 22-1/2 per cent, of his earnings.
How was it with Mr.Egan?
Out of his labour on his holding he got merchantable crops worth L60 sterling, or in round numbers $300, besides producing in the shape of vegetables and dairy stuff, pigs and poultry, certainly a very large proportion of the food necessary for his household, and raising and fattening beasts, worth at a low estimate L20 or $100 more.

And while thus engaged, his outlay for rent, which included not only the house in which he lived, but the land out of which he got the returns of his labour expended upon it, was L8, 15s., or considerably less than one-half the outlay of the Massachusetts workman upon the rent of nothing more than a roof to shelter himself and his family.