Sidney on Rural Expenditure. 323 



instead of giving them 105. a week, gave them 8 or 9, and 

 allowed them to cultivate such spots of waste and unemployed 

 ground as are to be found in all farms. Nothing stimulates 

 to industry — nothing cheers and sweetens industry so much 

 — as the reflection that its immediate effects (what we see 

 growing up under the labour of our own hands), will be our 

 own — go to the support of ourselves and families. We would 

 therefore strongly press this point, that all farmers would per- 

 mit the waste spots in their farms to be cultivated at their 

 leisure hours by their labourers and their families. In many 

 parts of England, the wives of the labourers, as well as their 

 children, even when capable of light work, spend a large 

 portion of the day in idleness. The cultivation of such spots 

 would keep them employed, at the same time that it contri- 

 buted to their support. 



But if the farmer, whose poor rates we supposed amounted 

 to 187/. per annum, found it impossible to spend that sum in 

 the profitable employment of the poor, he might surely ex- 

 pend it, partly in such employment, and partly in adding to 

 the neatness and ornament of his farm, especially that portion 

 of it which adjoined his house. It ought always to be kept in 

 mind, that he must pay the 187/. per annum; from that he 

 cannot escape. The enquiry is, whether for the whole, or 

 any part of it, he cannot get in return either something that 

 will profit, or something that will gratify him. The benefit 

 the poor will derive from employment cannot be doubted : on 

 the present plan, the 187/. paid annually by the farmer, con- 

 tributes not to their good, but to their harm : surrounds him 

 every year with worse characters, and with a greater number- 

 of them. If, then, he can lay out this money so as at once 

 to improve the poor in their condition and character, and to 

 increase his own profit or gratification, and accomplish these 

 objects without additional cost to himself, he most assuredly 

 has before him such motives as ought to lead him seriously 

 and attentively to consider the subject : and if he do, we have 

 no doubt he will find many modes and opportunities of laying 

 out the sum he now gives as poor rates, so as to secure the 

 object we have just pointed out. 



We are sorry Mr. Slaney has not entered more fully on 

 this branch of the subject : in our opinion, it is a most interest- 

 ing and important one. The remedy for the depravation in 

 character and condition of our agricultural population must, 

 indeed, as we have already stated, be found in raising their 

 minds and wishes to a higher scale : it is in their own hands. 

 The market at present is overstocked with labourers, and it 



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