LEASING. 245 
enjoyment of this full association, with their neighbors, 
the prattle, the gossip, the glee, the excitement it oc- 
casions, that I am sure the allowance of fourteen pence 
a day, certain and constant, would hardly be accepted 
by my leasing neighbors in place of it. Indeed I would 
not offer it, believing that this gleaning season is look- 
ed forward to with anxiety and satisfaction ; and is a 
season, too, in which the children of the family can con- 
tribute to its support without pain or undue exertion ; 
and viewing with much approbation and pleasure this 
long-established custom as a relaxation from domestic 
refinement, when every cottage is locked up and aban- 
doned by its inmates, to pursue this innocent, healthful, 
laudable employ, where every grain that is collected is 
saved from waste, and converted to the benefit of a 
needy and laborious community. From the result of the 
pauper leasing, no bad criterion may be obtained of the 
general product of the season ; for, as the collection is 
made from many stations, and variety of culture, these 
samples of all afford a reasonable average of the quality. 
It has been thought, but I trust and believe only in the 
apprehension of evil, that leasing is injurious to the 
morals of the poor, affording them an opportunity and 
initiating them in petty pilfering ; but if the disposition 
existed, it could be practicable but in very few instances ; 
mutual jealousy would prevent individual success, and 
immediate detection would follow the filching of num- 
bers. The commencement of many ceremonies and 
solemnities is lost by perversion, or in the obscurity of 
years ; the stream of habit may trickle on from age to 
age, till it flows in time a steady current, yet the original 
source remain unknown : but this custom of gleaning 
the remnant of the field we know existed from the 
earliest periods, three thousand years and upwards for 
certain ; for, if it were not then first instituted, it was 
secured and regulated by an especial ordinance of 
the Almighty to the Israelites in the wilderness, as a 
privilege to be fully enjoyed by the poor of the land, 
whenever their triumphant armies should enter into 
possession of Canaan. By this law, the leasing of three 
products was granted to the destitute inhabitants of the 
V 2 
