18 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



wants of the villagers.* A perfect frenzy for raising sheep 

 took possession of the agricultural community. No pains 

 were spared to increase the extent of pasturage. Small 

 tenants were evicted, laborers' cottages were pulled down, 

 the lords' demesnes turned into pasturage, and wastes and 

 commons which had before been open to all were now en- 

 closed for the same purpose. Every one was now con- 

 vinced that " the foot of the sheep would turn sand into 

 gold,"' and hastened to substitute grazing for tillage. But 

 while there was this sudden and wholesale transference of 

 the arable land to pasturage, as sudden and violent a change 

 in the character of labor was required. The dog and the 

 shepherd took the place of the plowmen and their teams, 

 and thus diminished the demand for labor at the very mo- 

 ment when the supply was increased. Very serious results 

 followed. The poorer tenants were ruined and an immense 

 number of persons were thrown out of employment, to be- 

 come beggars and thieves. It was, says Gibbins in the 

 "Industrial History of England," the beginning of English 

 pauperism. That this was no trifling change in the social 

 condition of the people the following quotations will prove : 

 " The Statute-book for 1489 tells us that the Isle of Wight 

 is lately become deca} T ed of people, by reason of many 

 towns and villages having been beaten down and is desolate 

 and not inhabited, but occupied with beasts and cattle ; 

 throughout England, too, we are assured that idleness daily 

 doth increase ; for where in some towns two hundred were 

 occupied and lived of their lawful labor, now there are oc- 

 cupied only two or three herdsmen." Starkey, the royal 

 chaplain in the next reign, only puts this more epigrammati- 

 cally when he says: "Where hath been many houses and 

 churches to the honor of God, now you shall find nothing 

 but sheepcotes and stables to the ruin of men, and that not 

 in one place or two, but generally throughout this realm." 

 Finally, if any further evidence is wanted to show that 

 great hardships were being entailed upon the peasantry, 

 there are the indignant words of Sir Thomas More, in which 

 he bids us sympathize with kl the husbandmen thrust out of 



* Traill, "Social England." 



