The Mismanagement of Landed Property. 379 



by ticket or written proposal; but in all three cases it was 

 set to the highest bidder,^ No consideration was given to the 

 qualifications of the applicant as regards capital, character, 

 and experience. Landlords were accustomed to remunerate 

 their agents on the same disastrous percentage principle wliich 

 has caused so much mischief in Ireland. " To my know- 

 ledge," asserts an anonymous writer, in 1785,^ " it has been 

 the custom of landowners, more particularly within twenty 

 miles of London, for many years past, as soon as the lease is 

 expired, to trick up the house, make the homestall neat, and 

 raise their lands from three to five shillings per acre, perhaps 

 more perhaps less, rightly supposing that, though the farmers 

 in the neighbourhood should refuse to give that rent, it will 

 catch the eye of a cockney, who, inflated with the idea of his 

 superior knowledge compared with that of a common farmer, 

 will think an advance of a few shillings per acre of no great 

 importance ; for he shrewdly reasons within himself that 

 though it ma}^ not be worth quite so much now, yet by his 

 improvements it v-dll presently be worth a good deal more. 

 And what's the event '? — why, independent of his own ruin, 

 the farm is raised perhaps one-fourth above its ancient rent, to 

 the prejudice of the neighbouring farmers and the nation at 

 large, and a benefit to no individual but the landowner. How- 

 ever, by the b}'^, it is only a temporary benefit to /ii/«, for he 

 must certainly suffer in common with the rest of the people by 

 every national evil." A little further on the author terms 



^ The following advertisement cut from the Farmers' Journal shows 

 that this custom prevailed at the beginning of the present century' : — 



Farms in the East Riding of Yorkshire. — Notice is hereby given, that 

 tlie time which was allowed for delivering in at Mr. Prickett's Office, 

 in Bridlington, Proposals for taking the Farms at Rudston, Caythorp, 

 and Bessingby, in an Advertisemnt of the same to be Let, and was limited 

 to the last Day of the present Year, will be extended v;nto Saturday, the 

 fourteenth day of January, 1809, owing to the heavy fall of snow, which 

 has deprived many gentlemen of an opportunity of finallj' viewing the 

 same, preparatory to sending in their proposals. — Bridlington, Dec. 22nd, 

 1808. 



2 A Political Enquiry into the Consequences of Enclosing Waste Land, 

 etc. 



