The Sun.
London, England, 1831-01-07 00:00:00

• titer parts of England, and the practice has been
sanctioned by the Legislature itself. No peculiar
blame, therefore, rests upon any particular parish for
making use of a mode of proceedin, so generally
adOpted, and enforced by such high authority. 'Nor
has it been suddenly enforced in this parish, or even
in the memory of the present set of parishioners.
It had been my wish to trace the first o7iein of this
principle of parish administration, and to mark, if
possible, some at least of its intermediate steps ; but
the information I have obtained from the books of
the parish has not been sufficient for that purpose.
The only safe inference which I have been able to
draw from the parish accounts is this : that in the
years 1730 to 1734., no parochial relief was deli-
vered out for the maintenance of day labourer:: In
agriculture, cases of sickness and accident being
alone excepted."
This Clergyman enters into a calculation of
the operation of the practice on different descrip-
tions of property. In the case of a rate of Bs.
in the pound, an occupier of 20/. a-year, who
employs no labourers, will nevertheless be obliged
to pay 8/. a-year towards the maintenance of the
labourers of the parish. Ile makes the follow-
ing sensible observations on the dreadful conse-
quences of this
This presure (he says) upon the smallest occu-
piers of land is of all the most ruinous in its effects,
because it falls upon a class of men who are the
least able to bear it ; for as small occupiers are al-
ways obliged to bring their produce to the most
early, and on that account, generally, the lowest
markets in the year, they seldom dispose of it, ex-
cept under great disadvantage, even in tunes of the
least difficulty ; and, in times of calamity and scar-
city, like the present year, there are seldom any of
the smaller farmers who have any bread corn to dis-
pose of at all; and many of those who have fami-
lies, are under the necessity of purchasing it for
their own domestic consumption. Perhaps it may
not be an extravagant conjecture to venture, if we
were to affirm, that if the small farmers should re-
main under a pressure of poors' rates for ten years
to come, equal to the pressure which they have ex-
perienced during the last ten years, that so useful
and respectable a set of men must necessarily be ex-
terminated entirely in many districts of the king-
dom, and many respectable fathers and mothers of
families would themselves become objects of that
charity which they had been ruined to support : their
farms would, on the first vacancy, be purchased by
neighbouring gentlemen, or by opulent farmers ; and
evemually, by the emit e suppression of small occu-
pations, every hope would be taken away from the
labouring poor of ever bettering their condition by
renting and cultivating a few acres for their own
advantage lndustry and main-
tenance are every day in this case less and less con-
: ected The labourer is now more in-
different concerning his wages titan I have ever be-
fore observed. As that indifference increases, the
master or employer will not be behind-hand in the
advantage he can derive from it ; and without taking
into consideration the obvious effects which might
be brought about by collusion, it seems highly im-
probable that wages can ever again receive an aug-
mentation, whatever may be the price of the neces-
saries of life."
Under this abominable practice, therefore, the
poor arc shut out from all hope of bettering
their condition, and all the gradations between
the great farmer and the parish serf are destroyed.
A variety of circumstances led to the intro-
duction of this practice.
We have already alluded to the existence of
manufactures in, and their departure from the
home counties, as a cause of redundancy of
people. Another cause is to be found in the
taking in of commons, which deprived thou-
sands of people of their possessions, and their
means of earning a livelihood.
The best account of the motives of the
Aristocracy with respect to commons, and the
principles which prevailed in the enclosure of
them, is to be found in the work of an acute but
singular Frenchman, who lived many years in
this country, M. Rubichon, a strong admirer
of the English Aristocracy, whose invasion of
the rights of the poor he held up to the Ultras,
to encourage them to invade the small properties

in France c—
" In 1791 (says M. Rubiebon) there were more
than 200,000 families—that is to say, more than a
third of the agricultural population of England—
who, for a small quit-rent, possessed in perpetuity a
cottage, a garden, and some small pieces of ground,
with the right of Peking fuel and pasturing on the
common. Such was the territorial divisiou of Eng-
land when France seemed to menace all the
Monarchies of Europe with the same destruction of
which she alone has been the victim. Messrs.
But ke, Pitt, Dundas, and many other Statesmen,
who have so often deplored in their speeches and
writings the loss of their relgious corporation, armed
in the defence of the civil corporations, which alone
sustained the mutilated trunk of their Monarchy ;
but, to defend the Aristocracy against such violent
attack, it was necessary to strengthen them in
wealth and in dependents. No commons could be
divided without an Act of Parliament ; but, as
Parliament is composed of great landowners, it
easily received f. out these three celebrated States-
men an electiical movement to proceed to the di-
vision of the commons of their manors.
" Certain inhabitants of the villages had a right
of common; they insisted that the division should
take place to the exelns!on of those who had no
right ; several had paid an annual acknowledgment
for their possessions; some were trespassers ; others
bad no ground. Though the villagers disputed
among themselves, they made common cause against
the great; they fought before Judges and Juries,
who are equally at variance. But the Twelve
Judges, setting out from the prin&ple that the
Lords of the Manors being only tenants for life,
led no right to make any concession, delivered,
through Lord Kenyon, the following judgment. 1
copy it, because I consider it as having put an end
to the numerous disorders, and thence being the
most active principle of prosperity ever possessed
by arty Monarchy The Court does not wish to
ieter fore with the execution of the laws for the
Division of Commons, except in order to cause the
Commissioners named by Parliament to act, in case
of their refusal ; but it ought to allow them to act
freely. If the Court were once to admit applica-
tions of this sort, it would be necessary to institute
two or three tribunals, which should have nothing
e:se to do ; it is doubtful if the law gives a right of
common to any cottage whatever. The inhabitant
of a cottage, who possesses only a garden, has no
right, as he cannot support, during the winter, a
cow, or any of the cattle he is permitted to feed on
the common ; several of the inhabitants of the vil-
lages have encroached on the common, with the
connivance of the Lord ; but they have no right to
a share or a division, except the ground taken has
been enclosed from time immemorial. By the law
of England, no proprietor even has a right to com•
mon, but between the rising and the setting of the
sun, and neither is it permitted to any proprietor to
send more cattle titan he can keep in winter on his
property ; it cannot be alleged that a Leech of ground
attached to a cottage can support a cow; it might
support pigs, but the Court doubts if it be rightful
to send them on the commons; as to geese, there
is no right : the Court decides then that the in-
habitant of a cottage has only right to fuel, and this
too only by the courtesy or connivance of the
Lord ; and besides, this right is only legal in cases
where the oldest men of the parish do not remem-
ber the having seen its commencement, that is to
say, from time immemorial. The clergy obtained
a victory over the Lords, the Lords over the pro-
prietors, and the proprietors over the villagers.
The strong prevailed over the weak, and happy is it
"
that it was so.
That remains to be seen. In 1808 appeared
a General Report on Inclosures, drawn up by