THE ENGLISH LAND SYSTEM 75 



that moment, is tending towards decline. First, in 

 respect of power and happiness, and afterwards in 

 respect of wealth. . . . There are other classes of 

 people living near great commons, besides farmers, 

 who derive very essential advantages from the rights 

 of common ; namely the cottager, the mechanic and in- 

 ferior shopkeeper ; but more particularly the cottager, 

 who in oreneral are labourers to the farmer. This 

 common right is an incitement to industry ... a means 

 of supporting their children with credit and comfort. 

 . . . They become valuable members of society. 

 Young men and women, after a few years' service in 

 which they manage to scrape up ;!^20 or ^30, marry 

 and take a cottage near a common. They then stock 

 their cottage with cows, calves, sheep, hogs and 

 poultry, &c., as much as their little fortunes will admit 

 of. He then hires himself as a day labourer to a 

 farmer, and the wife stays at home to look after the 

 live stock. I could mention many cottagers in my 

 neighbourhood under this predicament who keep two 

 or three milch cows, two or three calves a-rearing, 

 forty or fifty sheep, two or three hogs, and poultry 

 consisting of chickens, clucks, geese, and turkeys. . . . 

 The greatest part of the live stock, viz., of cows, sheep, 

 hogs, poultry, &c., seen upon the commons in general 

 in my neighbourhood, which are numerous and exten- 

 sive, are the property of cottagers. . . . We may 

 expect to see, every session, fresh violations of the 

 natural rights of the cottagers and the legal rights of 

 the small freeholders and copyholders, a species of 

 legal rapine justified by the Acts of the legislature 

 under the plausible pretext of the public good. It is 

 said that what people consent to give up cannot be 

 deemed an act of violence, and the law declares that 

 the consent of three-fourths of the inhabitants in 

 respect to number and value of possession must be 

 first obtained before any such Act can pass, but this is 

 mere sophistry, for those must be very obstinate or 



