i88 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER. 



of the Mendip Hills can be seen the Bristol Channel glittering 

 in the sun, and, beyond, the shadowy form of the Welsh 

 hills, and it is here " small ownership " has been carried out 

 to an extent rare in the annals of rural England. 



In 1841 the population was 707 ; in 1911 it was 359. 

 Though the population had dwindled to one half, the cottages 

 were not only legally overcrowded, but according to the Med- 

 ical Officer of Health for the county " grossly and morally 

 overcrowded." Thirty- three of the sixty cottages inspected 

 that year were occupied by their owners. In one cottage 

 three boys and two girls slept in one room, while the mother 

 and three children slept in the other. In the bedroom of 

 another cottage slept two youths aged sixteen and nineteen, 

 and two girls aged fourteen and nineteen. And it should be 

 remembered that most of these bedrooms were so small that 

 the cubic space allowed for each person was often far less 

 than that permitted in a common lodging-house. In one 

 bedroom, with an area of not more than 700 cubic ft., slept 

 three persons of two sexes aged fifteen, twenty, and twenty- 

 one. In two very small bedrooms of a capacity of 660 and 

 480 cubic ft. respectively slept a mother and eight children. 

 The Clerk to this Council admitted that no systematic 

 inspection had been made of this grossly insanitary village 

 for at least seventeen years. 



Now at this Enquiry, the ratepayers that is to say 

 the small owners living in their miserable hovels were 

 furious at the bare thought of new cottages being built with 

 a possibility of an increase in their rates. This hare was, of 

 course, soon started by the members of the Rural District 

 Council. 



Where the local authority is lethargic and the parish 

 is owned by exceedingly poor people the administration 

 of Health Acts becomes a dead letter. 



The Medical Officer of Health stated that Shipham 

 contained the worst cottages to be found in Somerset. 



One can hardly have two more striking instances of the 

 evils arising from leaving land in the hands of either large 

 or small owners than the parish of Shipham and the adjoining 

 parish of Rowberrow, which is entirely owned by its Squire. 



