- "Peasants Brawling Outside a Tavern'' by Pieter Angiliss (1685-1734)

“A QUARELL AMONGST THE PEASANTRY’’
Is how Eli describes the all too frequent fights amongst the plebeian youths over network games (Counter-Strike) at the internet café we used to frequent and other similar incidents.
It’s such a quaint picturesque phrase that sounds to me like it could be the caption of some English painting from the 1700’s depicting peasants dressed in breeches fighting each other with pitchforks and sticks (maybe the predecessors of the yeomen at the internet café fighting over a game of quoits at the quoits café).
‘’A quarrel amongst the peasantry, Hertfordshire England 1789’’
Or like some knowing country squire dismissing (as natural and inevitable) the antics of his subjects to a houseguest from London (who’s “stopping’’ for a month’’ – it’s always a month in the literature classics) as “a quarrel amongst the peasantry’’ when they come across a disturbance whilst travelling in their carriage.