AUGUST 143 



tested against his encroachments found themselves 

 confronted in the year 1235 with a special Act 

 drawn up for their discomfiture and disinheriting. 

 This Act, the famous Statute of Merton, was in 

 effect the first of nearly seventeen hundred En- 

 closure Acts, which up to the year 1800 robbed the 

 poor man of his property and gave it to the rich 

 man. In 1801 the provisions of these many Bills 

 were consolidated in Sir John Sinclair's Enclosure 

 Act, under whose ample provisions the work of 

 spoliation went on apace, and the next generation 

 saw its completion. The people woke up to find 

 themselves stript of their property. They had 

 ceased to be owners of land ; the only portion 

 which had ever been theirs had been stolen from 

 them while they slept. 



We can still trace in our parish the last rem- 

 nants of folk land, which were enclosed nearly a 

 century ago. Up to that time on Lammas Day 

 the heath began to be noisy with the lowing of 

 cows and the quacking of geese, and gay with 

 children whose right it was to play there. There 

 are not many ancient institutions which I would 

 gladly welcome back amongst us, but I should be 

 happy indeed if I could believe that the commons 

 and heaths and wastes of our rural parishes would 

 ever belong again to their rightful owners. 



Aug. 10. Beds of annuals are now good ; some, 

 such as petunias, at their best. These are rather 

 handsome in mixed colours with a wide edging of 

 white pansies, but it is a wonderful thing that people 

 do not oftener grow the old-fashioned pink variety, 

 which is almost a true pink, with but a little of the 



