CHAPTER XXn. 



THE EMANCIPATION OF LABOUE. 



Nothing is more interesting, nothing more important to this 

 History, than the struggles of the labourer to be free. At this 

 late period of our narrative, however, such a topic as his eman- 

 cipation would seem a startling anachronism, for surely by now 

 he had shaken himself clear from any lingering relics of his 

 serfdom ! Yet a short examination will bring to light evidence 

 that the abolition of feudal customs at the time of the Restora- 

 tion had not entirely obliterated the seignorial powers, which in 

 mediaeval days tended to reduce him to a mere chattel of his 

 master. 



Up to the year 1795 the justices were empowered to order 

 the removal, not exactly to their manorial, but to their paro- 

 chial birth-place, of all poor persons likely to become charge- 

 able to the ratepayers of their newly adopted home. This 

 virtually reduced the entire labouring population to the old 

 condition of the adscripti gJebce ; for though this law of settle- 

 ment (as it was called) would only apply to those unfortunates 

 who could not subsist on their own industry, the ability to do 

 so rested entirely with the representatives of the employer's 

 class, in that it depended upon the proportions which the 

 latter chose to fix between the price of bread and the rates of 

 wages. 



The landowning interest therefore retained, less directly per- 

 haps and certainly less effectually, that control over their 

 workpeople's food, remuneration, times of labour and place of 

 abode, which mediseval landlords exercised over their villeinage. 

 In other words, the landowners as magistrates had it in their 

 power, first by a manipulation of the rates of bread and labour 

 to pauperise, and secondly to restrict the freedom of habita- 



