Cottage Husbandry and Architecture. 141 



has, or ought to have, some hours of leisure every day, for the purpose of 

 health, recreation, and enjoyment. 



3. Recreation is not idleness, but a change in the kind and degree of 

 labour or occupation. 



4. The raising or culture of all his vegetables, including potatoes for his 

 family, and one or two pigs, poultry, &c, and fuel, may be made the recrea- 

 tion of the cottager and his family, without infringing one hour on the time 

 allotted to his business. 



5. Being so raised, they will cost the cottager less than what they could 

 be produced for by those who raise them as a matter of business and not 

 of recreation. 



6. The sense of property, the possession of a comfortable home, and the 

 social affections and local attachments thereby produced, will greatly 

 increase the enjoyments of the cottager, and in every way render him a 

 better member of society. 



These reasons are unexceptionable in point of theory, and confirmed by 

 experience and observation, not only with respect to this particular country, 

 but to one country as compared with another. Compare Tuscany, Switzer- 

 land, and Bavaria, with any part of Great Britain. In all the reports that have 

 been published respecting the poor and the poor's rate in England, it will be 

 found that those were always the last to seek relief from the parish who 

 occupied land. If the case of the cottagers of Ireland should be brought 

 forward to show that a cottager may occupy land, and even possess a cow, 

 and yet be very miserable, we reply that the land of the cottager in Ireland 

 constitutes his business, that is, his main source of existence ; whereas we 

 propose that only such men as have and follow some regular business as a 

 means of existence, such men in short as are required by the existing 

 demand for labour, should have a cottage and garden, and that they should 

 depend on the latter for such a part only of their means of existence as 

 they can procure during their hours of leisure. 



As what we recommend, therefore, cannot 'be considered as forcing the 

 cottage system, we do not think it liable to the reprehension of those who 

 maintain that by adding to the comforts of the poor we are only preparing 

 for their future misery by facilitating their increase. The more a man's 

 enjoyments are increased and his character raised, the less likely will he 

 be to risk the diminution of these enjoyments, and the loss of respect 

 among his equals, by an early or rash marriage, and by the creation of off- 

 spring without regard to what is to become of them. The most destitute 

 are always those who marry first ; because, when the degree of suffering is 

 at the lowest point, any change is sought for relief. * The possession of 



* Speaking of thewages of farm-servants in Cambridgeshire being scarcely 

 sufficient to maintain them, the excellent and practical John Denson 

 observes, — " Thus knowing their situation cannot possibly be worse, and 

 seeing no hope of it being made better, they marry ; and I believe it will be 

 generally found that those who have the least prospect of being able to 

 support a family are the most eager to rush into the cares of one." (A 

 Peasants Voice, tyc, p. 19.) 



" It would be natural to suppose that distress so aggravated would 

 reduce, or at least check, the increase of an unemployed and now burdensome 

 population, — that no man would marry with misery thus staring him in the 

 face ; but, so far from this being the case, on the contrary, in the present 

 horridly perverted state of things, want actually drives the pauper to 

 marry. He says, ' I have now about 3s. or 4s. per week ; I will get a wife, 

 and then the parish must give me a maintenance.' This is both the language 

 and the practice ; population is, in consequence, advancing rapidly, and so 

 is our poor's rate." (G. Z. [before quoted], in Farm. Journ., Feb. 22. 1830.) 



