500 History of the English Landed Interest. 



About this period tliere was perceptible a growing discon- 

 tent of the labouring class with the enclosure system. The 

 commoners realized that they were obtaining no adequate 

 compensation for their lost rights. Subsequently the legisla- 

 ture attempted to cope with this difficulty, but in these earher 

 days the question whether or not the poor would be defrauded 

 by an Enclosure Act depended mainly upon the magnanimity 

 of the lord of the manor. Here, again, there were numerous 

 instances of seignorial generosity. "We have but space for one. 

 A certain Edward Parry, lord of Little Downham Manor, in 

 Norfolk, used his influence in getting a clause inserted in the 

 Enclosure Act of his parish, directing the commissioners to set 

 out a parcel of land, to be called the " Poor Estate." It was 

 to be vested in the lord of the manor, rector, churchwardens, 

 and overseers of the poor for the time being. It was to be let 

 by auction on twenty-one years' leases, and the proceeds in 

 rents and profits were to be laid out in the purchase of 

 " fyrebote " for the cottages of the poor. This, if we come to 

 reflect, was only justice, because the poor man was from time 

 immemorial entitled to obtain his fuel from the old folcland. 

 But by Mr. Parry's arrangement he was in future exempted 

 from the expense of cutting flags, peat, and whins, a saving 

 of labour which, if he had only known it, was equivalent to 

 more than the purchase price of all the good firing which he 

 required.^ 



The laudable object of all this benevolence was to unite pri- 

 vate charity with parish relief, so as to lighten the weight of 

 both, and to teach the poor to help themselves. It was the 

 more praiseworthy because the bent of our Poor Law statesmen 

 was (unconsciously, no doubt,) to discourage both these worthy 

 aims. " Private charit}''," as one of the contributors to the 

 Board of Agriculture remarks, " was equivalent to a bestowal 

 of money in aid of the poor-rate, so that whoever maintained 

 a poor labourer or sick widow merely exempted his neighbours 

 from a portion of their taxes." The machinery for regulating 

 the rates of wages was far more effective than that for regulat- 



' Reports for Bettering the Condition of the Poor, 5 vols, passim, 1795. 



