AGRICULTURAL POPULATION. 37 



of the land, according to the provisions of the Levitical law in 

 respect to the Jewish priesthood, was taken for the support of 

 the established religion ; and the priests and clergy of the differ 

 ent parishes were accustomed to levy it in kind, and to exact it 

 to the extremity of every tenth portion of the honey made by 

 bees in the farmer s hives, every tenth chicken in the good 

 wife s poultry-yard, and every tenth egg laid by her fowls. In 

 deed, the monks, if reports be true, had always a remarkably 

 keen appetite for honey, and poultry, and eggs. By one of the 

 kings of England, the possessions of the church were seized and 

 confiscated ; and the right of claiming tithes, in many parishes 

 or districts, was given to his friends, reserving a very small por 

 tion for the support of the clergy. A great portion of the tithes 

 are now, therefore, held by laymen ; and in some parishes, for 

 example, where the tithes amount to several thousand pounds, 

 the clergyman gets only as many hundreds ; and the tithes of 

 any particular parish or place, or rather the right to enforce and 

 receive them, is as much a matter of sale or traffic as the land 

 itself. It is not for me to quarrel with the institutions of a 

 country of which I am neither citizen nor subject ; but it is 

 obvious that every burden upon the land must, to a degree, 

 operate to the prejudice of agriculture ; and the matter of levy 

 ing a tax originally intended exclusively for the support of 

 religious institutions, after it has long since avowedly ceased to 

 be applied in any form to that object, is an affair for those to 

 consider who are especially affected by it. I have not deemed it 

 necessary to inquire into the amount paid in this way, which 

 varies considerably in different places ; but the amount stated to 

 me by one farmer, the occupier of 250 acres of land, and whose 

 rent is 370, is at least 60 sterling (or 300 dollars) per year in 

 parochial rates, including all but specific taxes. The poor-rates 

 are in many cases extremely burdensome upon the land, the 

 wages of the laborers being in general so limited as not to admit, 

 but in rare cases, of their laying aside any of their earnings for 

 old age, or seasons of sickness and calamity. The support of 

 the poor formerly rested, in a great measure, upon the religious 

 houses, which were very largely endowed with lands and posses 

 sions for this very object ; but when these houses were broken 

 up and the property taken by the state, this burden was trans 

 ferred to the backs of the landholders or occupiers. The indi 

 vidual possessions of the landowners are sometimes enormous, 

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