J 66 Experiment for bettering the Labouring Classes. 



the addition would do him good ; and he has entered upon his 

 third taking. The produce of this additional land is meant 

 to supply the neighbouring markets with. The woman (who 

 has two children) sells what of it there is to spare, and does a 

 great deal of the easy work in the garden, the rest having 

 been hitherto performed by the husband, without neglecting 

 his regular employ. I did not in my former communication 

 describe the nature of the leases which have proved such 

 eminent encouragement to industry, because, having no good 

 precedent, mine were rather speculative; the object being to 

 effect what I had in view in the best practicable way, they 

 have varied, and, at the period of my last letter, I had not 

 been able to ascertain the effects of each. The first leases 

 were for three lives ; some time after, I added the right of 

 nominating an additional life on the decease of the first ; and, 

 subsequently, believing that it would enable those who were 

 unable to find at once the whole of the money they wanted, 

 to borrow on the security of the lease without difficulty, I 

 agreed to a clause for insuring ninety-nine years' possession in 

 the whole, that is, in all cases where the four lives should not 

 extend together to that term, and, completely to establish an 

 equality of title and property, allowed those who had taken 

 original leases to have them put upon the same footing. 

 These terms are universal in the village of Blackwood, con- 

 taining now about one thousand inhabitants. In the formation 

 of a second village at Ynisdd (Black Island), four miles distant 

 from the first, the improved has been the term of lease granted 

 without exception ,* but the ground-rent is lower, on account 

 of the situation at present not being equally advantageous. 

 At Trelyn (Town by the Pool ; a pool in the river Romney, for- 

 merly supposed to be unfathomable) the grant is of freehold 

 leases, on lives renewable for ever, on payment of 5s. heriot. 

 These I think preferable to any other ; and, that this opinion 

 is general amongst those who are likely to partake of their 

 benefit, from various circumstances, but more particularly from 

 the unexampled avidity with which these leases are taken 

 (exceeding, by far, any thing experienced at any time in either 

 the Blackwood or Ynisdd villages), is manifest. I cannot 

 conclude without mentioning that great and satisfactory im- 

 provements are making in the plan and management of our 

 village schools, and that a most promising disposition to 

 insure to their children the advantages of education has been 

 awakened generally in the minds of the parents, so that I 

 hope ere long we shall be able to adopt and maintain the 

 system of mutual instruction complete in all its branches. In 



