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national and international events. Wars, treaties, tariff barriers, import and export controls affected their prosperity. The fatalistic outlook found among farmers was found in the outworkers too, but whereas the farmer might save for a rainy day, the outworkers preferred to live for the present. In Bräker's conversation with the irascible "Captain" of Dorliken on 5 th October 1793, the latter is not entirely wrong in blaming outworking for an increase in poverty. Bräker retorts that the outworkers had no choice, those who did not own land had to find some other way to live, and if the cotton industry also let them down they were likely to resort to beggary. He could have added that the numbers of beggars were increased by incomers from other regions hoping to find employment there, because the Toggenburg was fairly liberal in allowing immigrants to settle.

Another problem, of the kind that is so obvious that it is easily overlooked, was that any disaster such as a failed harvest affected everyone at the same time. The same was true of sickness, in the absence of modern antiseptics and medical knowledge a few cases of disease could quickly become an epidemic. People might be able to rely on their extended family and neighbours for willingness to help in time of trouble, but they might be unable to do so since they were themselves suffering the same afflictions. Apart from this the only source of what we would call social services was the church; only in extreme cases would the government intervene, for example when the Prince-Abbot imported grain at his own expense during the famine of 1771. Bräker gives instances of solutions to social problems which seem far from satisfactory today, as when a destitute old woman, a drunkard and child sexual abuser, was lodged with his family [autobiography chapter 26]. Large social institutions such as hospitals or universities were found only in large cities, which the Toggenburg did not have.

The Toggenburg was not entirely without services, however. There was a postal service, not door-to-door (inns usually served as post offices) and not immune from pilferage and inefficiency, but Bräker was able to keep up that correspondence with distant friends which he valued so highly. The carters, though their boorish behaviour in roadside inns offended him greatly, conveyed letters and parcels for private individuals as well as business enterprises. Bräker never mentions using any public passenger transport except for the ferries across lakes and rivers; no doubt horses and vehicles could be hired, but one assumes he could not afford them. Perhaps he preferred to walk, 18 th-century coach travel was very uncomfortable and only the main roads could take wheeled vehicles. Sledges could be used in winter, but this involved the labour of smoothing a path for them.

One service which does appear to have been readily accessible was that of doctors, who seem to have been quite numerous even in the Toggenburg and surprisingly efficient, able if required to go beyond the routine bleeding and purging still practised in the 18 th century. Bräker was cured of more than one serious illness, and on one occasion [see autobiography chapter 25], the doctor did not charge the family for his services. Bräker even underwent surgery [autobiography chapter 61] successfully, though an operation without anaesthetic must have been horribly painful. Medicine provides a good example of the beginning of modern methods co-existing with the last remnants of the medieval world, as when Bräker's grandfather poulticed a thorn-pricked thumb with cow-dung, with fatal results. The treatment of insane people is another example, the cures were often barbaric but the physical and social causes of insanity were recognised, it was no longer regarded as possession by evil spirits. It seems, however, that the doctors could do little to improve the chances of survival among young children.

The Toggenburg's reputation for poverty and backwardness was not a matter only of material things, it was also supposed to be the domain of ignorance and immorality, stemming from inadequate education on the one hand and misinformation on the other. "Inadequate" certainly seems the right description for a system in which an intelligent boy like Bräker was debarred by his poor background from progressing beyond the basic literacy provided by the Protestant church. If he had been a Catholic - or a girl - he might not even have got this far. Primary schooling for poor people was entirely in the hands of the churches, attendance was not

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