104 ENCLOSURES OF THE EIGHTEENTH 



It does not appear, indeed, that they had any legal right 

 to tkese privileges. Some had obtained them by grant of 

 the, lord, which was revocable, others had usurped them, 

 more especially on manors belonging to the Crown. Yet 

 they were just the sort of inchoate rights which, in the 

 Middle Age, might have gradually gained strength under 

 the protection of the manorial courts into rights, ' according 

 to the custom of the manor ' ; customary rights which, in 

 time, the royal courts might themselves have enforced, but 

 which were not yet strong enough to stand the test of 

 the King's Law. 



X Then again, there were many little village officials, the 

 viewers of fields, the letters of cattle, the common shepherd, 

 the hayward, the chimney sweepers, or peepers, as they 

 were called, 1 who lost their employment and with it the 

 plots of land they had held in payment of their services. 

 A commissioner of enclosure lamented that he had been 

 accessory to injuring the poor at the rate of twenty families 

 per parish. 2 



Even A. Young admits that out of thirty-seven parishes 

 in the Eastern Counties there were only twelve in which 

 the labourers had not been injured, and says that by nine- 

 teen out of twenty Enclosure Bills the poor are injured, 

 and some grossly injured. ' The poor in these parishe 

 may say Parliament may be tender of property ; all I kno\ 

 is, I had a cow and an Act of Parliament has taken it froi 

 me/ 3 He therefore urged that allotments sufficient 

 keep a cow or two should be granted to them. 



Something, indeed, was done by the Act of 1797, anc 

 by the later General Enclosure Acts a certain allotment 

 of land was to be given to the guardians. Sixty year 



1 Slater, p. 128. 



2 Board of Agriculture Report, 1808, p. 156. 



3 A. Young, Annals, xxxvi. 516. 



