708 Condition of the Labouring Classes. 



" There is no better way," says Mr. Sabatier, " to encourage the poor, 

 than by inducing them to employ all their waste time in cultivating a small 

 piece of land, and to make use of all their dirt and rubbish to manure it ; 

 to do which effectually, it must be contiguous to the cottage. The object 

 should be, to employ the wife and children at times when they would other- 

 wise be idle. A cottager, who works for daily wages, has now and then an 

 hour or two to spare in the long days; and, by weather partly wet and partly 

 fine, at all seasons. These, if he had an allotment of land, he might be 

 induced to employ : it is, in short, that kind of work which Dr. Franklin 

 advises all persons to keep by them, because it may be taken up and laid 

 down at any time; when this is not the case, these scraps of time are spent 

 in lounging about, or else at the alehouse." {A Treatise on Poverty, its Con- 

 sequences, Sfc.) 



" But what is the remedy?" says the reviewer. " Mortgage the poor- 

 rates, and raise funds to remove the excess of population to Canada. 

 This might, perhaps, answer for a very few years ; but the vacuum, we fear, 

 would soon be filled up ; the number removed would be replaced ; and, at 

 no distant period, a second removal, and consequently, a second mortgage, 

 would become necessary. This succession of removals and mortgages 

 would require, we fear, to be repeated, until at last no surplus revenue 

 would remain to mortgage : the rent of the land would thus be annihilated. 

 Check the increase of population ! as well might an attempt be made to 

 stop up the current of the Thames; the puny efforts of men can do but little 

 to counteract the effects of one of the strongest and most powerful of 

 Nature's laws 



" The manufactures of this country no longer offer a resource for the 

 superabundant hands not absorbed by agriculture. The only alternative, 

 thereforej seems to be the application of this increasing force to the culti- 

 vation of their native soil. If we can neither remove nor diminish the popu- 

 lation of a district, let us attempt what is still better than either — to augment 

 the produce. In this way one thing is certain, that no harm can be done ; 

 and we observe with satisfaction the growing strength of an impression, that 

 some great effort must be made to render the land of this country an avail- 

 able source of prodnctive employment to the labouring population. Con- 

 vinced by what he saw elsewhere, as well as by practical experiments on his 

 own property, of the beneficial tendency of the system of attaching small 

 allotments of land to cottages, the late Lord Brownlow determined to 

 adopt it generally on every part of his extensive estates ; he eventually al- 

 lotted between 5 and 6 acres of land to each of his cottagers, in number 

 about 500. The occupiers pay for these allotments the same rent as 

 the neighbouring farmers pay for land of the same quality ; and this has 

 made them so comfortable and independent, that the whole body does not 

 contain an individual who would not resent the mention of parish assistance 

 as a disgrace and an insult. The present Bishop of Bath and Wells divided 

 a considerable portion of the glebe land belonging to a benefice which he 

 formerly held in Cambridgeshire, among a certain number of the more in- 

 dustrious labourers of the parish. So well satisfied was the reverend prelate 

 with the result of this parochial an'angement, that when he removed to 

 Wells he introduced the same system on a portion of his episcopal demesne 

 in the vicinity of that city; nor has that failed in Somersetshire which suc- 

 ceeded in Cambridgeshire. The moment the lease of any of his fiirms fell 

 in, it was the uniform practice of the late Duke of Northumberland (which 

 is continued by his successor) to have the farm carefully examined. Every 

 cottage was put into complete repair ; every garden was put in order, and 

 from .~ to 5 acres of land were then taken from the farm, and attached to 

 each cottage; and it was not until these arrangements liad been eflected, 

 that the residue was let as a farm. It has never been found that any of 

 these labourers, or their families, arc found to go to their parishes for relief. 



