2IO HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE 



said, to be no such easy matter to get there when a stage coach 

 was four or five days creeping loo miles and fares were high ; but 

 in T770 a country fellow 100 miles from London jumped on 

 a coach in the morning and for Ss. or los. got to town by 

 night, 'and ten times the boasts are sounded in the ears of 

 country fools by those who have seen London to induce them 

 to quit their healthy clean fields for a region of dirt, stink, 

 and noise.* A prejudice might well have been entertained 

 against the metropolis at this time, for it literally devoured the 

 people of England, the deaths exceeding the births by 8,000 

 a year. One of the causes that had hitherto kept people 

 from London was the dread of the small-pox, but that was 

 now said to be removed by inoculation. Among the troubles 

 farmers had to contend with were the audacious depredations 

 caused by poachers, generally labourers, who swarmed in 

 many villages. They took the farmer's horses out of his fields 

 after they had done a hard day's work and rode them all night 

 to drive the game into their nets, blundering over the hedges, 

 sometimes staking the horses, riding over standing corn, or 

 anything that was cover for partridges, and when they had 

 sold their ill-gotten game spent the money openly at the 

 nearest alehouse. Then they would go back and work for 

 the farmers they had robbed, drunk, asleep, or idle the whole 

 day. The subscription packs of foxhounds were also a great 

 nuisance, many of the followers being townsmen who bored 

 through hedges and smashed the gates and stiles, conduct not 

 unknown to-day. In spite of these drawbacks the long period 

 of great abundance from 17 15 to 1765 and the consequent 

 cheapness of food with an increase of wages was attended with 

 a great improvement in the condition and habits of the people. 

 Adam Smith refers to ' the peculiarly happy circumstances 

 of the country'; Hallam described the reign of George II 

 as ' the most prosperous period that England has ever ex- 

 perienced'^; and it was Young's opinion about 1770 that 

 ^ Tooke, History of Prices, i. 50; Hallam, Constitutional History, iii.302. 



