WALK IN RURAL ENGLAND. 3 



libel seems to be held like a threat over 

 the head of every scribe, one dare not write 

 nowadays as Cobbett wrote in 1826. Yet 

 Cobbett himself was not exempt from per- 

 secution ; for did he not endure two years in 

 prison for courageously writing against an act 

 of barbarous cruelty, in those good old days 

 when sheep-stealing was a hanging matter, 

 and snaring a rabbit a matter of transportation 

 for life ? 



It would be interesting, I thought, to cover 

 the same ground on foot in Hampshire and 

 Wiltshire that Cobbett rode over on horse- 

 back in 1826, marking the change in the 

 conditions of rural life between his day 

 and ours. 



The clamour on the subject of over-popula- 

 tion was in full cry in Cobbett's time, that is, 

 when the population of England and Wales 

 was only 12,000,226. Now the population of 

 England and Wales stands at 36,075,269, 

 according to the census of 1911. Cobbett, 

 however, contended that rural England was 

 under -populated, and he rode forth as our 

 St. George to slay the Dragon of false economic 

 doctrines so hurtful to the well-being of our 

 nation. 



