LEASING. 369 



able employ, where every grain that is collected is 

 saved from waste, and converted to the benefit of a 

 needy and laborious community. From the result 

 of the pauper leasing, no bad criterion may be' ob- 

 tained of the general product of the season ; for, as 

 the collection is made from many stations, and va- 

 riety of culture, these samples of all afford a reason- 

 able average of the quality. It has been thought, 

 but I trust and believe only in the apprehension of 

 evil, that leasing is injurious to the morals of the 

 poor, affording them an opportunity and initiating 

 them in petty pilfering : but, if the disposition 

 existed, it could be practicable but in very few 

 instances ; mutual jealousy would prevent individual 

 success, and immediate detection would follow the 

 filching of numbers. The commencement of many 

 ceremonies and solemnities are lost by perversion, 

 or in the obscurity of years; the stream of habit 

 may trickle on from age to age, till it flows in time 

 a steady current, yet the original source remain un- 

 known : but this custom of gleaning the remnant of 

 the field we know existed from the earliest periods, 

 three thousand years and upwards for certain ; for, 

 if it were not then first instituted, it was secured 

 and regulated by an especial ordinance of the Al- 

 mighty to the Israelites in the wilderness, as a privi- 

 lege to be fully enjoyed by the poor of the land, 

 whenever their trium phant armies should enter into 

 possession of Canaan. By this law, the leasing of 

 three products was granted to the destitute inhabi- 

 tants of the soil, the olive, the grape vine, and 



2 B 



