RIGHTS OF THE POOR. 83 



times namely, upon their obscurity, and the ease with which they 

 can be turned to any signification,, just as futurity is calculated from 

 the ringing of the village bells, of which it has been well said, that 



" As the bell tinks, so the fool thinks, 

 As the fool thinks, so the bell tinks." 



| We say that it is satisfactory to reflect that when all these are for- 

 gotten, the benefits of practical suggestions and enlightened patriotism 

 will be seen in a thriving and contented people. THE LABOURERS' 

 FRIEND SOCIETY, which has been established some years, proceeds 

 upon a plan admirably calculated to attain the noble and beneficent 

 ends at which it aims. It interferes neither with master nor man 

 neither with labour nor capital it recommends no sudden and 

 violent changes in our institutions it brings forwards no new fangled 

 schemes for the regeneration of society, but contents itself simply by 



\ making earnest endeavours to extend the views it has adopted, and 

 by anxiously striving to induce landowners on the one side, and 

 labourers on the other, to make an experiment at least of the system 



^ of small^ allotments. It is no Joint-stock company purchasing land, 



f and grinding down tenants in the attempt to force an unnatural profit; 

 but it employs its funds in collecting facts and observations tending 

 to illustrate the advantages resulting to property and to labour by 

 making the labourer independent of parochial relief and dependent 

 on his own exertions ; to teaching, that a man who has some in- 

 terest in the soil who feels that he has a stake in his country, is 

 likely to be a better citizen ; and that by finding himself and family 

 a source of healthy employment during those hours he is not en- 

 gaged in his usual routine of occupation, he is abstracted from evil 

 communications, and thus benefitted both in a moral and physical 

 point of view. These are noble objects, and the entire freedom from 

 selfishness marking the proceedings and intentions of this society, 

 renders it worthy of all commendation and support; and we cannot 

 wonder that good and wise men should hail its progress as at least 

 one satisfactory sign of the times. 



The principle recommended is this that, wherever it is practicable, 

 a small plot of ground, from thirty-five to forty poles in extent, shall 

 be attached to every cottage. This space is sufficient to employ the 

 leisure hours of a day-labourer, and that of his wife and *young fa- 

 mily. This is no novelty ; so early as the reign of Elizabeth, an act 

 was passed to prevent any cottage being built, without having four 

 acres of land attached to it, an act which was not repealed till 15th 

 of George III., c. 32. The principle thus acknowledged sprung no 

 doubt from the fact, that the small landowners, emphatically termed 

 the "yeomanry of England," had ever been found her firmest stay 

 and surest support, and from a wish to raise up a secondary class of 

 landholders that might approximate in character to this valuable 

 body of men, and who might at the same time be employed as agri- 

 cultural labourers. Both these classes in many districts are nearly 

 extinct ; we know several townships within the boundaries of which 

 during the last forty years upwards of thirty respectable landowners, 

 and an equal number of small renters have disappeared, and where 



