Note 39 — Chapter XLIV
Reading edition
It may be necessary to explain what is meant by strangers, as well as the reason they receive higher wages. The average rate of wages is eightpence sterling, per day,[40] with the additional privilege of a cottage, a plot of ground in which to plant provisions, and medical attendance. Some estates which are short handed, endeavour to procure labourers from other plantations, and as they have not to provide them with anything but their actual wages, they are enabled to give these strangers (as they are termed, to distinguish them from the resident labourers) a few pence more per day.