Synopsis of Chapters. ix 



PAGE 



and seasons much the same after the Revolution as they had 

 been for ages — The introduction of a National Debt and a 

 standing army, necessitated by the circumstances of the civil 

 wars, begins to arouse popular discontent with our fiscal system 

 — Alterations apparent in tbe seignorial monopoly of district 

 government — The officials of the covinty police system and their 

 connection with the land — Interior economy of the rural man- 

 sion — Its servants, furnitvire, and construction — Dress, food, 

 recreation, and habits of its inmates — Altered and enlarged 

 views regarding social distinctions — Relationship between 

 squire and tenantry — Typical instances of the lauded gentle- 

 man (such as Evelyn, Tull, and Townshend) born in the seven- 

 teenth century — Contrast between the rustic and the citizen — 

 Trade and social intercourse between town and country — Uses 

 and abuses of St. Bartholomew's Fair — Country entertainments 

 and pursuits — Seventeenth century postal arrangements, and 

 their important bearing on the dissemination of agricultural 

 information .......... 68-94 



CHAPTER V. 



UNSATISFACTORV CONDITION OF THE LAND LAWS AFTER THE 

 ABOLITION OF FEUDALISM. 



The powers of alienation after the statute of 12 Car. II. — The con- 

 fusion and intricacy suri'ounding titles to realty — Dr. Chamber- 

 laine's suggestion for a public registrj' — The objections to such 

 a process — An examination of the various seventeenth century 

 treatises bearing on the subject — -Feigned recoveries and their 

 defects — Attempts by the advocates of registration to prove the 

 advantage of their scheme to the entire community — The argu- 

 ments of the opposing side against such reasoning — Physical 

 impossibilities of a public registry exposed — Other objections 

 briefly examined — A modified scheme proposed by a writer who 

 admits the drawbacks pointed out by the opponent" ^i registra- 

 tion — The course which the legislature finally adopted sketched 

 out 95-109 



CHAPTER YI. 



THE POLITICAL ECONOMIST AND THE LAND. 



The erroneous views of the earlier economists on the subject of 

 national wealth — Rise of the mercantilist school, and their 

 less faultjr opinions — -The sounder reasoning of Hobbes, North, 

 Petty, Locke, and Hume on the sources of wealth, etc. — Ques- 

 nai's overthrow of Colbert's fallacies, and the formation in 

 Paris of the physiocratic school — Their more philosophical 

 conception of the true source of wealth, and their exaggerated 

 views on the importance of the agriculturist to society — Their 

 defective explanation of the term wealth finally set right bj^ 

 Adam Smith — His championship of the labour element in the 

 wealth-producing machinery — Tbe insignificant influence of 

 new doctrines on the British Government — Smith's adaptation 

 of truths already promulgated by leading English mercantilists 



