By the Rev. J. Wilkinson. 



23 



three small rooms and 10 or 15 perches of garden ground fetch £4 

 a year. The explanation is, that a large proportion of the cottages 

 for hire are owned by one person, who also keeps a beer shop and 

 general store of such articles as the poor require. He works the 

 rent against the shop, and the shop against the rent, so that he is 

 able to keep up prices in both commodities. 



Population. 



The earliest official enumeration of the population, with houses 

 and occupations, was in 1801, and the results for this parish in that 

 year, and in every succeeding tenth year up to the present time, 

 are as follow : — 



Yeab. 



1801 



1811 125 4 291 365 656 187 62 120 



1821 139 1 393 383 776 145 43 99 



1831 149 5 360 375 735 184 58 64 



1841 



1851 



In the return for 1831, it is evident that the families, engaged 

 in trade or manufactures, and in other occupations, are not classi- 

 fied on the same principle as in the preceding returns. In 1841 

 the birth places were given, and of the 741 then living here, 725 

 were born in Wilts and only 16 elsewhere. In 1841, 1851, the 

 families and their occupations are given generally in the census 

 abstracts, but not in detail for each parish. I estimate our families 

 now to be 148, of whom 63 are agricultural, 33 weavers, 52 of 

 other or of no occupation. The present population may be given 

 at 612. The proportion then of acres to a person is 26, of persons 

 to a house 3'7. Throughout the county generally these proportions 

 are 34, 4*9, respectively. 



The population is steadily decreasing. The cause is decline of 

 employment for the hand-loom weavers. We dwell prett} r well 



