LEASING. 245 



enjoyment of this full association, with their neighbors, 

 the prattle, the gossip, the glee, the excitement it oc- 

 casions, that I am sure the allowance of fourteen pence 

 a day, certain and constant, would hardly be accepted 

 by my leasing neighbors in place of it. Indeed I would 

 not offer it, believing that this gleaning season is look- 

 ed forward to with anxiety and satisfaction ; and is a 

 season, too, in which the children of the family can con- 

 tribute to its support without pain or undue exertion ; 

 and viewing with much approbation and pleasure this 

 long-established custom as a relaxation from domestic 

 refinement, when every cottage is locked up and aban- 

 doned by its inmates, to pursue this innocent, healthful, 

 laudable 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 obtained of the 

 general product of the season ; for, as the collection is 

 made from many stations, and variety of culture, these 

 samples of all afford a reasonable 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 num- 

 bers. The commencement of many ceremonies and 

 solemnities is 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 unknown : 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 Almighty to the Israelites in the wilderness, as a 

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

 whenever their triumphant armies should enter into 

 possession of Canaan. By this law, the leasing of three 

 products was granted to the destitute inhabitants of the 

 V2 



