The Makmg of the Land. 229 



sub-division, etc., than they did as pasturage. The Reports 

 from the Midlands and other parts of England all confirm 

 Young's previous estimate. In every county there was a 

 considerable area of the Folcland still existent, and in many 

 there were open plough-grounds still subject to Lammas Law. 



Lastly, we come to the effects on the labouring class of 

 enclosing the wastes. Here indeed that same society of prac- 

 tical villagers mentioned before, foreshadowed a difficulty so 

 formidable that it not only confronted the enclosure commis- 

 sioners over and over again in the ensuing century, but has 

 defied, even to this day, the best intentions of the legislature 

 to overcome it. This was the absence of any practical method 

 of securing to the evicted commoner an equivalent advantage 

 for his lost rights. 



Not, however, even in the home counties had there as 3'et 

 arisen any misgivings in the public mind that the popular 

 playgrounds would be absorbed into individual holdings. Mill 

 had not yet headed a literary crusade against the legalised 

 violation of what he called " The Peasants' Park," and the 

 unfrequented wastes near London were more the resort of the 

 highwayman than the holiday-maker. No Commons or Public 

 Footpaths Preservation Societies watched with jealous eye the 

 confiscation of village greens hitherto devoted to such games 

 as " nine men's morris," prisoner's base, barley brake, leap- 

 frog, etc. The metropolis and other great cities had too many 

 so-called " lungs " for demagogues to pose as popular heroes by 

 clamouring against the absorption of the open spaces. Nor 

 was the engrossing of farms (a consequence of the enclosure 

 system) found on closer scrutiny to have lessened the rural 

 population. For Young, twenty years before, had compiled a 

 series of tables showing the acreage, cultivation, head of live- 

 stock, and number of people on each class of holding which he 

 had visited ; and when we come to examine these statistics, 

 we shall find that the large farm especially tended to promote 

 population, and the bulk of the evidence in- the Reports to the 

 Board establishes the same fact. Thus asserts the writer in 

 the East Riding of Yorkshire : ^ " Some are of opinion that 

 * Eejiorts to the Board of Agriculture in 1794. 



