V AND HIM jA .,i^TH CENTURIES 97 



cases provide the extra labour which was from time to 

 time required they were often idle and thievish, and some- 

 times dangerous. 1 f Where wastes are most extensive/ 

 says a writer of 1794, ( there cottagers are most wretched 

 and worthless. Accustomed to rely on a precarious or 

 vagabond existence from the land in a state of nature, 

 when that fails they take to pilfering and poaching/ while 

 another, speaking of Epping, says, ' the undergraduates in 

 iniquity commence their career with deer stealing, and here 

 the more finished and hardened robber retires from justice.' ' 2 

 Indeed, when we read of the condition of those parishes 

 which at the beginning of the eighteenth century were 

 still unenclosed, we are astonished, not that enclosure came 

 when it did, but that it had been delayed so long, and are 

 forced to agree with A. Young that ' the goths and vandals 

 of open-field farmers must die out before any improvement 

 could take place '. 



The question, how far the enclosures of the eighteenth 

 century affected the landless classes, only concerns us 

 indirectly. It may be, therefore, briefly summarized. The 

 results in this respect, as in the sixteenth and seventeenth 

 centuries, depend upon two factors. First, whether it was 

 the waste or the common arable field which was enclosed, 

 and second, whether the land so enclosed was used for 

 arable purposes or for pasture. Of course, if the waste 

 were enclosed and used for arable purposes there would 

 be more employment, but not so if it still continued 

 unploughed, and even if the open field when enclosed was 

 still ploughed there would be fewer hands employed. 3 



1 Report 1844, Qs. 71, 1811, 1816, 3091, 3095, 4122, 4204, 6068, 

 5071, &c. 



a Vancouver, Essex, p. 110. 



3 1,000 acres rich arable land supported 20 families before enclosure, 

 5 after ; poor arable land 20 before, 16| after. Board of Agriculture 

 General Report, 1808, p. 1. 



