To cap their wretchedness, when at last the picking had begun, hops and hoppers were well-nigh swept away by a frightful storm of wind, rain, and hail.The hops were stripped clean from the poles and pounded into the earth, while the hoppers, seeking shelter from the stinging hail, were close to drowning in their huts and camps on the low-lying ground.Their condition after the storm was pitiable, their state of vagrancy more pronounced than ever; for, poor crop that it was, its destruction had taken away the chance of earning a few pennies, and nothing remained for thousands of them but to 'pad the hoof' back to London.
'We ayn't crossin'-sweepers,' they said, turning away from the ground, carpeted ankle-deep with hops.
Those that remained grumbled savagely among the half-stripped poles at the seven bushels for a shilling- a rate paid in good seasons when the hops are in prime condition, and a rate likewise paid in bad seasons by the growers because they cannot afford more.
I passed through Teston and East and West Farleigh shortly after the storm, and listened to the grumbling of the hoppers and saw the hops rotting on the ground.At the hothouses of Barham Court, thirty thousand panes of glass had been broken by the hail, while peaches, plums, pears, apples, rhubarb, cabbages, mangolds,- everything, had been pounded to pieces and torn to shreds.
All of which was too bad for the owners, certainly; but at the worst, not one of them, for one meal, would have to go short of food or drink.Yet it was to them that the newspapers devoted columns of sympathy, their pecuniary losses being detailed at harrowing length.
'Mr.Herbert Leney calculates his loss at L8000;' 'Mr.Fremlin, of brewery fame, who rents all the land in this parish, loses L10,000;'