better, are consequently more able to endure labour that they are contented with their situation, and attached to it; that having acquired a sort of independence which makes them set a higher value upon their character, they are generally considered in the neighbourhood as men the most to be depended upon and trusted; that feeling the advantage of possessing a little, their industry is excited by hope; and that when a labourer has obtained a cow, and land sufficient to maintain her, his next thought is to save money enough for buying another. The experiment was tried also in Wiltshire, in a parish containing one hundred and forty poor persons, divided into thirty-two families, chiefly employed as labourers in industry. Having suffered greatly during the high price of provisions in 1801, it was proposed to them that they should make an effort to better their circumstances, and occupy, at a fair rent, such a quantity of land as each family could cultivate without improperly interfering with their usual labour; the land was to be forfeited if they received any relief from the parish, except medical assistance, or under the militia laws. The proposal was gladly accepted by all who could possibly accept it; and the consequence was, that the poor rates, which in the six months before the experiment was made had amounted to £212. 16s., amounted three years afterwards, in the six corresponding months of winter, to no more than £12. 6s.! The utmost quantity of land thus leased was an acre and a half, one fourth of which was planted with potatoes in winter, and the rest was in corn or in garden cultivation; which shows that even arable land, as some have contended, is not always hurtful to the cottager. A singular Act of Parliament was made in 1778, for the regulation of a valuable common in Essex, containing 453 acres. By an utter neglect of the fences surrounding the common, there was some danger of the bounds being lost, and that encroachments might gradually cut off material parts of it; it was also stocked in a manner that deprived the poor of the benefit which they might, under a better arrangement, have reaped from so fine a tract of land. By the Act, it was vested in trustees, who were empowered to levy a tax of 6d. per annum for each sheep, and 2s. 6d. for each head of greater cattle, to form a fund on which to borrow money enough to pay for the Act, and for fencing the common, and other necessary charges; but the trustees were cut off from paying themselves any sum exceeding 40s. per annum for their own expenses. The whole business seemed to have no other object but benevolence to the poor. There are one hundred common rights, and all are made equal, from the poorest cottager to the lord of the manor himself; and all are inalienable from the cottages. By the Act, twenty sheep and four beasts were allowed to each right; but every circumstance rested within the power of the trustees, who have reduced this to ten sheep and two head of horses or cattle. William Palmer, Esq., who possessed considerable property here, had the praiseworthy humanity to offer to lay down money to enable every poor man, otherwise unable, to find stock, to buy ten sheep, the produce of which was to be his until he was repaid, and then to remain the cottager's. It is a fact much deserving the most serious attention, that every man who accepted the offer (which very many did) repaid the money within two years, and some in a shorter term; a circumstance that proves what may be done with attention, when the object is sincerely to assist the poor, perhaps in the manner of all others the most useful, by giving them live stock, and the means of feeding it. BRITTON ABBOT. Thrice happy Abbot! Illustrious swain, 'twas thine, from youth to age, A flow'ry nook, with nature's bounty grac'd, PRATT. A beautiful little cottage and garden situated about two miles from Tadcaster, on the road to York, has long attracted the eye of the traveller. The slip of land is exactly a quarter of an acre, inclosed by a quickset hedge, and contains fifteen apple trees, four plum trees, two apricot trees, several gooseberry and currant bushes, an abundance of common vegetables, and three hives of bees, being all the apparent wealth of the possessor. The singular neatness and good order (says Sir Thomas Bernard) that marked every part of this little domain, and some circumstances respecting the owner, which had been mentioned to me, made me anxious to obtain the history of the cottager and his family. In the end of May, 1797, in my way from York, I called and learned from him his history, as follows: The name of this cottager is Britton Abbot; his age sixty-seven, and his wife's nearly the same. At nine years old he had gone to work with a farmer; and being a steady careful lad, and a good labourer, particularly in what is called task-work, he had managed so well, that before he was twenty-two years of age, he had accumulated nearly £40. He then married, and took a little farm at £30 a year; but before the end of the second year, he found it prudent, or rather necessary, to quit it, having already exhausted in his attempt to thrive upon it, almost all the little property he had heaped together. He then fixed in a cottage at Poppleton, where, with two acres of land and his common-right, he kept two COWS. Here he had resided very comfortably, as a labourer, for nine years, and had six children living, and his wife preparing to lie in of a seventh, when an enclosure of Poppleton took place, and the arrangements made in consequence of it obliged him to seek for a new habitation, and other means of subsistence for his family. He applied to Squire Fairfax, and told him that if he would let him have a little bit of ground by the road-side, "he would show him the fashions on it." After enquiry into his character, he obtained of Mr. Fairfax the ground he now occupies, and with a little assistance from the neighbours in the carriage of his materials, he built his present house, and planted the garden and the hedge around it, which is a single row of quick, thirty-five years old, and without a flaw or defect. He says he cut it down six times successively when it was young. Mr. Fairfax was so much pleased with the progress of his work, and the extreme neat ness of his place, that he told him he should be rent free. His answer deserves to be remembered: "Now, sir, you have a pleasure in seeing my cottage and garden neat; and why should not other squires have the same pleasure in seeing the cottages and gardens as nice about them? The poor would then be happy, and would love them and the place where they lived; but now every nook of land is to be let to the great farmers, and nothing left for the poor but to go to the parish." He has had seven children, six of whom attained to man's estate, and five are now living and thriving in the world. One of them is the wife of a labourer, who has built a cottage for himself at Tadcaster, and wants nothing (as the father observes) but a bit of ground for a garden. Britton Abbot says, he now earns 12s., and sometimes 15s. and 18s. a-week, by hoeing turnips by the piece, setting quick, and other task-work; "but, to be sure," he added, "I have a grand character in all this country." He gets from his garden, annually, about forty bushels of potatoes, besides other vegetables; and his fruit in a good year is worth from £3. to £4. His wife occasionally goes out to work; she also spins at home, and takes care of his house and garden. He says they have lived very happily together for forty-five years. To the account I have given it may be needless to add, that neither he, nor any part of his family, has ever had occasion to apply for parochial relief. Though my visit was unexpected, and he at the latter end of his Saturday's work, his clothes were neat and sufficiently clean, his countenance was healthy |