A HISTORY OF BUCKINGHAMSHIRE 



roundsmen increased in number with great rapidity, and the evil of the system 

 was recognized by the justices in 1795, but their remedy was even worse 

 than the system itself. ' The court,' at the Epiphany sessions 



took into consideration the having appeared to the Magistrates now assembled that the 

 mode adopted in many parishes of the County of employing all poor labourers indiscrimi- 

 nately as Roundsmen at an under price hath been attended with great inconvenience and 

 abuse and requires a speedy and effectual remedy. And it appearing to this court that the 

 following are at this time absolutely necessary for the support of the industrious labourer 

 and his family and that where it happens the labourer and his wife and such of his children 

 as may be able, duly and honestly perform several labours on which they may be employed 

 and yet do not earn the weekly sum after mentioned, the same ought to be made up to 

 them by the parish officers : 



For a single man according to his labour. 

 For a man and wife not less than 6s. 



with one or two small children Js. 

 For every additional child under the age of 10 years is. 



The effect of this order was naturally the lowering of wages and a great 

 increase in the poor rates, for the farmers agreed in many places to give less 

 than the minimum fixed by the justices and the residue fell on the rates. 



In 1785 the whole expenditure for the year at Aylesbury was 

 jTi,o6o los. o\d., but in 1805 it had risen to be 3,022 6s. yd. In 1789 

 five collections had been made at 6d. in the , but in 1801 there were 

 eleven collections at the increased rate of is. The Buckinghamshire justices 

 had perceived at the end of five years the evils to which this system of 

 subsidizing labour led lowering wages and pressing most unfairly on non- 

 employers of labour, tradesmen and farmers cultivating their land themselves 

 and the report at the Michaelmas sessions of 1 800 showed them to have 

 been considerably in advance of their contemporaries in the theory of poor 

 relief. In an order ' respecting servants' wages ' they stated that great 

 inconvenience had been caused by the neglect in carrying out the Act of 

 1 60 1, a neglect partly due to imperfections in the statute : 



In many instances the wages of the industrious labourers in husbandry has been set by 

 agreement of the land occupants at a rate greatly below the real value of labour, as com- 

 pared with the usual price of corn or Common wages of Labourers in constant employ, 

 within the same parish and to which is then added under the name of relief such allowance 

 from the parish rates as the Overseers of themselves may administer or the Magistrates 

 direct. 



That those labourers usually known as roundsmen (being of ability for fair and ordinary 

 earning from labour) are appointed on each occupant according to the supposed value of his 

 occupancy at reduced wages. It appearing at this moment they are paid in most parts of 

 the County only 6s. for the week and in some parishes as low as 4*. per week, being a sum 

 wholly inadequate for their labour. 



The order further said that the remainder of the sum necessary for the 

 labourers' subsistence was paid from the rates, and was often a charge on 

 those who obtained no benefit from the labour. The bad effects which this 

 system produced on the morals, general habits, and industry of the labourer 

 was commented on, and a change of practice was advocated which would 

 throw the price of labour where it ought ultimately to fall. The only 

 practical remedies suggested, however, were an increased facility for justices 

 in dealing with the rate of wages, the enforcement of the Acts relating to 

 the wages of labourers, and the appointment of a committee of four men 

 to act with the magistrates of each hundred where such practices were the 



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