26o ECHOES OF OLD COUNTY LIFE. 



imprisonment and transportation, and the country be- 

 came gradually quieted. Among others, two men, whose 

 names I forbear to mention, were tried for these crimes 

 and sentenced to death, but three days before the time 

 fixed for execution they received a reprieve, and the 

 sentence was commuted to transportation for life. One 

 died in New^ South Wales, and the other, a tall, fine 

 agricultural labourer, received a pardon after having 

 served several years of his sentence. He returned to 

 his native parish, and became a thriving man ; and a 

 few years ago, whilst I was in the Assize Court, I saw 

 this very man a prosecutor giving evidence against a 

 prisoner who had robbed him, and who was of course 

 standing in the dock, in the very same place where 

 the prosecutor had stood some years before and had 

 heard himself sentenced to death ! 



I have omitted to state one serious cause of the mal- 

 administration of the old Poor Law, due, I regret to say, 

 to scandalous behaviour of many landowners during the 

 early part of the present century — this was the system of 

 pulling down and destroying the cottages on an estate, 

 and by this means driving the labourers into other 

 parishes, so as to get rid of the cost of the maintenance 

 of the poor altogether, especially in old age. I have 

 even known instances in which the parish church was for 

 a like reason permitted to fall into decay. Quarrendon, 

 near Aylesbury, is an instance ; and the clergyman, 

 who was non-resident, and whose duty it was to serve 

 the parish, took no action, as it saved him the trouble 

 of going from his residence to a parish two miles off; 

 thus also the farmers got rid of the church-rates ; and, 



