SECT. III.] RESULTS OF THE INQUIRY. 229 



following extracts from the Report of the Commissioners 

 for inquiring into the operation of the Poor Laws in Eng- 

 land. 



" We are happy to say that not many cases of the actual 

 dereliction of estates have been stated to us. Some, how- 

 ever, have occurred, and we have given in the extracts 

 from our evidence the details of one, the parish of Choles- 

 bury, in the county of Berks. It appears that in this 

 parish, the population of which has been almost stationary 

 since 1801, in which, within the memory of persons now 

 living, the rates were only 10/. 11 s. a-year, and only one 

 person received relief, the sum raised for the relief of the 

 poor rose from 991. 4s. a-year in 1816 to 1501. 5*. in 1831 ; 

 and in 1832, when it was proceeding at the rate of 367^. 

 a-year, it suddenly ceased, in consequence of the impossi- 

 bility to continue its collection ; the landlords having given 

 up their rents, the farmers their tenancies, and the clergy- 

 man his glebe and his tithes. The clergyman, Mr. Jeston, 

 states, ' that in October 1832, the parish officers threw up 

 their books, and the poor assembled in a large body before 

 his door while he was in bed, asking for advice and food/ 

 Partly from his own small means, partly from the charity 

 of neighbours, and partly by rates in aid imposed on the 

 neighbouring parishes, they were for some time supported; 

 and the benevolent rector recommends that e the whole of 

 the lands should be divided among the able-bodied paupers;' 

 and adds, e that he has reason to think that, at the expira- 

 tion of two years, the parish in the interval receiving the 

 assistance of rates in aid, the whole of the poor would be 

 able and willing to support themselves, the aged and im- 

 potent of course excepted/ In Cholesbury, therefore, the 

 expense of maintaining the poor has not merely swallowed 



