72 ENCLOSUEES, 1770-1820 



cultivated area of the country in England and Wales 

 alone. 



The agricultural and economical aspects of the question 

 favoured enclosure, but the social ai-guments were less 

 conclusive. It was, indeed, urged that enclosure of com- 

 mons would benefit the morality of the country. The 

 commoners are described as a ' most wretched ' class, relying 

 on a precarious and vagabond subsistence, eked out by 

 pilfering. Their ' miserable huts ' are ' seldom or never 

 abodes of honest industry,' but harbour ' poachers and 

 thieves of every description.' Forests, like Epping or 

 Hainault, were the resort of ' the most idle and profligate 

 of men ; here the undergraduates in iniquity commence 

 their career with deer-stealing, and here the more finished 

 and hardened robber retires from justice.' On the other 

 hand, it was said that enclosures depopulated the country, 

 were often needlessly created, and infllicted irreparable 

 damage upon the poor. 



The depopulation of the country by enclosures was not 

 confirmed by experience, because the object of the change 

 was rather the increase of tillage than, as in the sixteenth 

 century, the extension of pasturage. Arthur Young, in 

 1801,^ proves by statistics, that of thirty-seven enclosed 

 parishes in Norfolk, population had risen in twenty-four, 

 diminished in eight, and remained stationary in five. In 

 some few instances, no doubt, land was enclosed and 

 ploughed which would have been more profitable as open 

 pasture, but these cases were rare and exceptional. The 

 real strength of the argument against the enclosure of 

 commons lay in the injury they often inflicted upon the 

 poor. The ' Country Gentleman,' whose pamphlet has been 



' l7iquiry into the Propriety of apphjinrj Wastes to the Better Sajj/jort 

 and Maintenance of the Poor. 



