Farming of Lincohisldre. 



409 



"Where villages cluster most closely together it is common for 

 the men to walk a mile to their work ; but in many districts, 

 particularly where the parishes are thrown into one or two farms 

 each, one large village supplies all the surrounding farms with 

 labourers, who have to travel 3 or 4 miles every morning and 

 night to and from their labour. This is the case at Binbrook and 

 many other places on the Wolds. The population is very un- 

 evenly distributed ; and the cause invariably assigned is the un- 

 willingness of parishes and proprietors to rebuild old houses or 

 erect new ones, in consequence of the Law of Settlement." 

 They wdsh to keep down the population in their respective 

 parishes, w ilh a view of having less poor-rate to pay. At Winter- 

 ton, for instance, are numerous freeholds and small occupations of 

 land, arising in a great measure from the reluctance of neigh- 

 bouring' .landowners to rebuild or erect cotta2:es. Labourers 

 being thus driven out of other parishes find a home here, and 

 many are able to hire an acre or more of land (for perhaps 5/. per 

 acre), which their families, being out of the reach of paid em- 

 ployment, cultivate; whilst themselves are obliged to walk a 

 great distance before and after their day's work. In the neigh- 

 bourhood of Kirton-in-Lindsey there is again the same lack of 

 cottages, the owners neither building nor repairing them, because 

 they would be obliged to support the families which might settle 

 there. Consequently this town, having many small freehold 

 estates, is crowded with the poor from other parishes, who hire 

 dwellings here and go 2 or 3 miles to work. The above are 

 spare examples, but abound in many parts of Lincolnshire. Now 

 the Settlement Laws have assuredly much to do w-ith this ques- 

 tion : at present the paupers in each Union are paid for out of a 

 general fund, but the parishes in which they have resided are 

 assessed according to the amount of relief respectively received 

 by those parishes; and if the settlement were made to refer 

 simply to different unions, and an equalization of rate should take 

 place throughout all the parishes joined in each, the proprietors 

 would probably see the folly of attempting to exterminate the 

 poor in order to lessen poor-rates, and would not object to the 

 workman living near the spot of his labour.* But without an 

 alteration of this kind, under the present circumstances of the 

 case, this practice of refusing to build, wdien rent would remune- 

 rate as in other outlays, must , be denounced as inhuman, unjust, 

 and impolitic. It is inhuman and cruel to compel the poor to 

 live in a place far removed from their work, thus imposing 

 additional hours of labour and fatigue upon them^ and to force 



* Petitions to Parliament from Louth, &c., complain of the hardship and injustice 

 arising from the laws relating to the parochial settlement of the poor, and pray for ari 

 equalization of the poor-rates. 



