A HISTORY OF SUSSEX 



and Sutton sixteen. 807 Arundel and Petworth were single parishes under the 

 Act, and Brighton and Chichester were administered under local Acts. 308 

 Discontent and poverty, however, increased to an alarming extent ; threaten- 

 ing letters were circulated in West Dean as early as I795, 309 and rick-burning 

 occurred" in Hailsham in 1816-17; in Northiam the vestry was violently 

 entered in 1822, and the labourers declaring that they would help themselves 

 to their own, burnt the tithe ricks. 810 Elsewhere throughout the county riots 

 became prevalent about the year 1830 Rottingdean, Singleton, Chiddingly, 

 Worth, and Crawley being almost the only districts which were exempt from 

 some form of rioting. 



The causes of discontent most usually alleged in answer to the inquiry 

 held in 1834 were the high price of provisions and the low rate of wages, 

 especially to single men, and the attempt of the parish authorities to find 

 employment for the labourers on the roads the work being unprofitable, and 

 consequently degrading and ill-paid, and affording ample opportunity for dis- 

 cussion of grievances. In certain districts the trouble was attributed to 

 malice and drink and political agitation, due to revolutionary literature and 

 William Cobbett's lectures, 311 and in others, such as East Grinstead, it was 

 said that the concessions granted by the employers in their first panic had 

 encouraged the rioters to further excesses. For the most part, however, the 

 tendency was towards a charitable policy in its most pernicious forms. The 

 true secret of the outbreak was revealed in the report from Northiam. 

 The labourers, ran the return, have for some time past been fully aware that 

 they can claim a subsistence, and the opinion has so far prevailed, that 

 whether idle or industrious, the amount must be regulated by the number of 

 the family, that in the riots they took upon themselves to regulate the amount 

 of relief, as well as the rate of wages indeed the former yet more than the 

 latter. The consequence of the riots was that both relief and wages were 

 now given in accordance with the demands of the rioters. 81 * 



There were two principal factors in this miserable policy of pauperiza- 

 tion. In the first place the farmers preferred to pay low rents and high rates, 

 and at Eastbourne, at least, they openly avowed the fact at the vestry meet- 

 ings. By pursuing such a system they could always secure what extra hands 

 they needed, and as soon as rain came they were able to turn them off on to 

 the parish again, so that the shopkeepers and lodging-house keepers bore a 

 share in their maintenance. They were not sufficiently far-sighted, nor had 

 they a sufficiently permanent interest in the land to dread the destruction of 

 property or the pauperization of the labouring population. 318 In justice to 

 the good feeling of the ratepayers of the county at that period, however, it 

 ought to be stated that by far the greater amount of demoralization was due 

 to a real, though in part misdirected, interest in the welfare of their poorer 

 neighbours. The great objection which was urged against the dissolution of 

 the Gilbert unions of East Preston and Sutton in 1844 was that the rate- 



307 Accts. and Papers, 1844, xl. ** Ibid. 1847-8, liii. *" Ibid. 1834, xxxiv. 



" L. F. Salztnann, Hist, of Hailsham, 60 ; Accts. and Papers, 1834, zxziv. 



111 



At Brede there had been no burnings till ' after Cobbett's harangue at Battle ' ; Framfield, Guestling, 

 and St. John sub Castro had also been roused by political agitators. At Brighton the outburst was attributed 

 to wantonness and spleen ; Arundel, Ditchling, Eastbourne, Framfield, Lindfield, and Ringmer complained of 

 the beer-shops. 



111 Attti. and Papers, 1834, *** ** Ibid. 1884-5, 



206 



