152 ENGLISH RURAL LIFE 



There were three other features of the time affecting 

 labourers' lives that require consideration. Poaching, 

 which had been to a previous generation not only a 

 source of food but also a source of wealth, decreased 

 as risks increased. This increase of risk arose from 

 the systematic employment of gamekeepers and the 

 improved organization of the police, to whom new and 

 increased powers were given. 1 Further, the enclosure 

 of a large part of the remaining commons then took 

 place, depriving many labourers of the remnants of 

 their grazing rights, while this class suffered greatly 

 from the bad state of the cottages, and also from a 

 want of allotments, though in some places, in response 

 to widespread agitation, small plots of land were 

 provided for labourers. 



The power of the country gentry in Parliament was 

 greatly weakened by the Reform Act of 1832,2 which 



brought into the House of Commons a 

 Central and large body of men of the commercial 

 ment.^ classes. But the local control of the 



country-side remained for long in the 

 hands of the squirearchy, who from quarter and 

 petty sessions continued to administer rural England. 

 The main change in the form of local government was 

 the decay of the rural parish as a controlling power, 

 on the administration of the poor laws and, in some 

 districts of the roads, passing into the hands of the 

 Guardians of the Poor and Highway Boards4 respectively. 



The Anglican Church had by the beginning of the 

 XlXth century grown out of touch with the views and 



1 See Appendix, p. 172. - Ibid. p. 167. 



3 Ibid. p. 171. 4 Ibid. p. 174. 



