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He rarely does more than turn out a tenant who is too "independent," and prevent the increase of cottages. But this is only because he happens not to wish to do more. It is not more than fifteen years ago since a wealthy squire drove out of a certain seaboard parish a number of families, counting one hundred persons in all. The heads of these families had offended him mortally by exercising their legal right of inquiring into the administration of a local charity, founded before his time. These people had to go somewhere. Where did they go ? As no landowner would allow the sudden irruption of a hundred persons into a village—where in all probability there would not be a single house to accommodate them—they must have scattered themselves, as in fact they did, in the nearest towns. On a small scale, this sort of thing is constantly happening, and fully accounts for the overcrowding of towns. The exodus is doubtless helped by the fact that in a town a man feels himself more free, and has more amusements; but as the children of villagers grow up, they have little choice—go they must. There is no room in country districts for a surplus population. It does not "pay" the landowner to build cottages for persons not in his service, not to mention that he looks on the estate as his own private preserve, and on strangers as more or less trespassers. Parish Councils have no doubt done something towards greater liberty, but it is a mockery to talk of liberty when every man in the village knows that he can be turned out of his house if he offends the squire, and that this will be in effect an edict of banishment. In the instance to which I have referred the landowner carried his resentment so far as to refuse to renew the lease of a house which had been rented for many years as a summer residence by a gentleman from London, unless that gentleman would give a written promise to take no part in parish affairs. The gentleman had been active in demanding the inquiry. He refused to give the undertaking. In this instance, self-interest failed to act as a restraint. The house stood unlet for years, and the squire must have lost considerably. The story got into the London papers, and the unflattering comments made on the squire had the effect that for years after it was difficult for summer visitors to find any sort of lodgings, except at the house of the steward