the other died, about five years ago, in one of £120 a-year."[1]
He concludes with an account of two poor families in different parts of the country, who are rendered comfortable "by my letting two good tidy houses, one with a large orchard and garden at £4, 10s. a year, the other with two fields at £6 a year. In the first, a widow with eight children is supported by the cow, etc.; in the second, a very aged man, with an insane daughter, and a person to take care of them." If dismissed from their "little bargain," they must immediately be "supported at great expense by the parish to which they belong. … It is absurd to talk of turning commons into cornfields, that the poor may reap and thrash corn, and so remain wretchedly poor. No … let them build, or allow poor labourers, young farm-servants, when they marry, to run up an hut on the common, and enclose as much as they can cultivate. It is the only way to diffuse happiness among the poor."
The newly-established Board of Argriculture, with its founder. Sir John Sinclair, at its head, was very keen on enclosure. "A General View of the County of Salop" was drawn up for the Board in 1794, by J. Bishton of Kilsaal in that county. It gives the landlord's side of enclosure, and shows the alarm caused by the revolt of the French peasantry. The use of common land by labourers "operates upon their minds as a sort of independence," whereby they get "a habit of indolence." When the commons are enclosed, "the labourers will work every day in the year, and their children will be put out to labour early." Best of all, "that subordination of the lower ranks of society, which in the present times is so much wanted, would be thereby considerably secured."[2]
"Six inclosure bills were read the first time" on
- ↑ The writer remarks on "the extreme cruelty of the generality of farmers, in refusing to take in a cottager's cow to straw-yard in winter, that the poor man may not keep his cow on the common in summer." He knows of one such instance, "where a farmer, by this method, raised a fortune of £20,000, but his children have dropped off like rotten sheep."
- ↑ "A daughter kept at home to milk a half-starved cow, being open to temptations, soon turns ——— and becomes an ignorant distressed mother instead of a good useful servant. The surrounding farmers by this means have neither industrious labourers nor servants."
