ii2 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER. 



necessary, to leave notice of all defects and repairs necessary to 

 be done. The landlord reserves to himself the right to stipulate 

 what portion, if any, of the garden shall be used for the cultiva- 

 tion of flowers, and the tenant hereby agrees to use such portion 

 for that purpose only." 



The difficulty of working the forthcoming Local Govern- 

 ment Act of 1894 on democratic lines was foreseen by the 

 Van lecturers when it came to " close " parishes. 



" The village and parish of Stanton St. Bernard, in East 

 Wilts, is the property of the Rt. Hon. George Robert Charles 

 Herbert, Earl of Pembroke and Montgomery and Baron Herbert 

 of Cardiff, J.P. ; High Steward of Wilton ; of Carlton House 

 Terrace, London ; Wilton House, Salisbury, and Mount Merion, 

 Co. Dublin ; and of the Carlton, Eton and Harrow, St. James', 

 Marlborough and Travellers' Clubs. His lordship is lord of the 

 manor, sole (absentee) land " owner," patron of the living, 

 receiver of rent and tithe. Of the nearly 2,000 acres of land in 

 the parish about 40 are glebe. The noble owner lets the rest, 

 together with all the cottages, to two farmers. The two farmers, 

 besides controlling the cultivation of all the land in the parish, 

 and the tenancy of practically all the cottages, are the church- 

 wardens, and overseers of the poor and the school managers. 

 One of them has charge of the rate book. Nothing could well be 

 simpler than this system of parish government. The labourer 

 who wants to work in the parish must obtain employment on 

 the Earl of Pembroke's land under one of the Earl of Pem- 

 broke's two farmers, who will house him in one of the Earl's 

 cottages, deducting the rent from his weekly wages. He sends 

 his children to the ' national ' school (managed by the Earl of 

 Pembroke's farmers), and ' goes on Sunday to the Church ' 

 where, under the eyes of the two churchwardens (Lord Pem- 

 broke's farmers again), he ' sits under ' a clergyman appointed to 

 the parish (by the Earl of Pembroke). When he gets too old to 

 work, or is reduced to hopeless poverty by misfortune, he must 

 apply for Poor Law relief to the same two farmers. If, in spite of 

 all these arrangements for his comfort he is still discontented 

 with his lot, there is no building not even a schoolroom which 

 is largely subsidised out of the taxes in which he can meet to 

 take counsel with his fellows, unless he first obtains the permission 

 of the Earl of Pembroke's farmers. If the parish of Stanton 

 St. Bernard were a slave estate, owned by the Earl of Pembroke 

 and managed by two overseers on the Earl's behalf, the condition 

 of the inhabitants could hardly be more completely one of 

 slavery than it is to-day." x 



1 Among the Agricultural Labourers with the Red Vans, 1893. 



