HOP-PICKING TIME IS HERE A Town-Workers' Holiday

From a Correspondent An old single asserts that: Hymns and heresy. hops and beer. Came into England all in one year.
do not intend to discuss this surprising statement. with its implications that vernacular hymns were unknown to the English before the beginning of the sixteenth century, and that a definite year can be assigned to the first appearance of Protestant errors in this country.
Beer. both the beverage and the name. was certainly known to us in the middle ages (or so i gather from the writings of Mr. Baca.: and Mr. Chesterton), though it was more commonly called ale: and the wild hop flourished in our then considerably less extensive hedgerows. But at a certain date (a popular work of reference. whose reliability I have reason to suspect, says it was in 1524) the cultivation of the hop for use in brewery was introduced from Flanders and, after encountering strong opposition from conservative connoisseurs, its use became general.
" In Theory" For a time malt liquor flavoured with hops was called beer, as distinct from the ale flavoured with other herbs, but now all such liquors. whether mild or bitter beer. light ale or heavy pester, are in theory brewed with hops.
I say " in theory " because. in accordance with that characteristic or our glorions civilisation in which good things are replaced hs ieferior substitutes in order to put more money into the pockets of the producers. commercial brewers fas apposed to domestic ones; who still exist in remote and happy corners of England and Wales) have in a certain extent taken to using chemical or other substitutes. Nevertheless, there are still many thousands of acres devoted to the growing of hops, chiefly in the 'county of Kent, and the harvesting of this crop is an important and trying time in the farmer's year.
The plant has an underground rootstock from which arise the rough sterns (" biries") which twine " with the sun " around any available support to a height of l5 feet or more: from these grow in smell bunches the " female " flowers, like small soft cones. acrid-sweet smeIlina. which are what the brewer wants. '
Working on Stilts
The cultivation provides for the bines to trait around vertical strings-, attached to horiLontal wires stretched frompoles (the setting of this siring frame over acres of ground is a ticklish ;ob. done by skill men who work on stilts), and when the hops are ripe a sharp jerk of the hand will bring down each bine. vertical string and all. and the hops can then be easily dc teched by hand and dropped into sacking bilRme.aders may well ask why so lone, and tedious a job is not done by machinera. Perhaps it may he some day, unless the need of hops is first entire!) done away .with: but so tar the only machine invented for the purpose was a complete failure: it simply could not " pick " the hops without picking the leaves as well, and they are not wanted.
To gather the thousands of tons of hops from thousands of acres of land, thousands of pairs of hands are needed. and the job is far beyond the resources in snailpewer of agricultural Kent. Every year. therefore. towards the end or August the necessary oorkers are imported into the hop-gardens from south and east London.
How Hops are Measured Women and chilch en are in the majority (small children are quite efficient pickers. the work is not unsuitable. and they can knock off when they like). though the women are reinforced at the week-ends by husbands, brothers, and sweethearts who are working in London during the week. They work in family or other groups, and are paid at the rate of one shilling for a tally. which is a variable number of baskets holding rather m—e than a bushel: last year the tally varied from 5', to 6 baskets.
The amount earned naturally varies with the size and skill of the group, but though reasonably good money may be earned by reasonable industry the hoppers (for so the pickers are disrespectfully called) generally reckon to spend all they get before they go home—hop-picking is primarily a holiday. and, if the weather is kind, a good and healthy holiday. Farmers get to know who are the steadiest people and best pickers, and Londoners _ really_ like the job, so that her health to this annual working holiday; many. men and women, said to me they would not miss it for anything. and the eildren love it.
The Gypsies The consistently best pickers are the gypsies. whose fresh-painted blue. red, green. yellow., orange, purple caravans are a happy sight after the shiny dullness of motor vehicles. but they are also a troublesome people to the farmers and police.
And proud. They will not pick in the same rows, drink in the same bars, or camp in the same fields as the Londoners. Nor, for that matter, will the homedwellers, i.e.. pickers who live in the locality, and it is from collision betweini these three groups that trouble sometimes arises.
The work of reference to which I have referred above says in its superior way that, " to pick the hops labour of a very inferior type is brought from London."
The writer means by this that those who come to do the labour are of a very in ferior type. Well, they're not. They're excellent people, but they're poor and rough and don't read Shakespeare or H. Cr. Wells. and like to drink lots of fermented liquor and to dance and make a noise: and sometimes they get drunk and fight and steal from the shops, fowl-runs, or orchards.
Fifty 'Years Ago Fifty years ago they had a quite superior standard or lawlessness and disorder; rather less time than that ago I can remember as a small boy in East Kent that the hop-picking season was a sort of local " terror "—and it lasted sometimes six weeks then, instead of the three it is noTwh.e local people are still glad when it is over (though the shop and inn keepers do well out of them), but the behaviour of the pickers has improved out of all knowledge: for example, they do not fight murderously as they did. and they now buy their beer in pints where before they bought it literally in buckets—with the natural results; and I think the caging-in of all the shop counters and displays with wire-netting is now a measure of convenience and custom rather than of necessity.
It is difficu'A to know to what to attribute this increased law-abidingness and order. Partly. Lfear, to decrease of spirit. pertly. I hope. to increase of virtue: partly, know, to more revere for and fear of the police tan estra force is drafted from London), and partly to the improvement in the way they are housed. And partly to the influence of the Capuchin Friars Minor and of various Protestant org,anisarions which work among them.
A Good Memory
i have a memory abiding with me of the lovely village of Yalding on a Sunday evening in hop-picking time.
The broad main street. fined with houses of great age and beauty, its by-ways and greens. its naraiw bridge, were crowded with happy people: the inns were thronged. their bars overflowing on to the roadway: from all sides came gusts of song, the noise of concertinas and mouthorgans; shouts, catcalls and loud laughter: there were numerous groups of dancers and others of card-players; love-making was going on everywhere: men, women and children. mothers and babies, aged and young. all were out in the open air enjo)ing themselves.
Ii seemed that it was given to me then to le looking at an English village on holier.) iii the days when English village lhe really existed as a self-contained,
self-satistied, good thing. It is true that the se, etc were all London cockneys. that tb.;.• beet was of inferior quality. the singing had and the songs worse, the dancing just absurd meandering from city dancehalls. But the happiness was real enough and the setting superb: it was a pleasing illusion of rural England before it was depopulated and ruined by the stark selfishness and crass stupidity of industrialism.
K.S.C. Camp In Kent
Ten seminarians from Wonersh, eight men helpers and nearly 140 boys have been in camp at Shoreham in Kent, under the auspices of the Knights of St. Columba. Frs. Eincham, Winham and Arbuthnot are with the boys, who hear Mass every day in a large marquee. On Sunday a procession of the Blessed
Sacrament was held in the camp. Visitors, eeerearee ess. eetta Mr ih Ripersvi