Note 255n — INDEX

[562] Cf. supra, p. 163.

[563] R. Marshall, Rural Economy of Yorkshire, p. 17 et seq.

[564] Slater, English Peasantry and Enclosure, p. 7.

[565] It was stated in the Report of the Committee on Enclosures (1844), p. 31, that the ordinary expense of obtaining an Enclosure Act was from £1,000 to £1,500. In 1814 the enclosure of three farms, amounting to 570 acres, including subdivision fences and money paid to a tenant for relinquishing his agreement, cost the landlord nearly £4,000.—Agricultural State of the Kingdom (1816), p. 116.

[566] Enquiry into the Propriety of Supplying Wastes to the better Support of the Poor, p. 42.

[567] The usual clause in Enclosure Acts stated that the land should be 'allotted according to the several and respective rights of all who had rights and interests' in the enclosed property, and expenses were to be borne 'in proportion to the respective shares of the people interested'.

[568] pp. 8 et seq. Slater, op. cit. p. 113.

[569] Cf. Marshall's account of the common-field townships in Hampshire at the end of the eighteenth century. Each occupier of land in the common fields contributed to the town flock a number of sheep in proportion to his holding, which were placed under a shepherd who fed them and folded them on all parts of the township. A similar practice was observed with the common herd of cows, which were placed under one cowherd who tended them by day and brought them back at night to be milked, distributing them among their respective owners, and in the morning they were collected by the sound of the horn.—Rural Economy of Southern Counties, ii. 351.

[570] Report of Committee on Waste Lands (1795), p. 204. Ground was frequently left by the Acts for the erection of cottages for the poor, and special allotments were made to Guardians for the use of the poor, in addition to the land allotted to all according to their respective claims. Can any one doubt that if there had been a systematic robbery of the smaller holders on enclosure they would not have risen 'en masse'?

[571] Slater, op. cit. p. 133.

[572] Agricultural State of the Kingdom (1816), p. 8.

[573] Report, p. 204.

[574] State of the Poor, pp. i, xviii.

[575] Lecky, England in the Eighteenth Century, vi. 191.

[576] Slater, op. cit. p. 191.

[577] Report, p. 27.

[578] See above. Another estimate puts them at 180,000.

[579] Tour, i. (2), 37, 38.

[580] Toynbee, Industrial Revolution, p. 62.

[581] Hasbach, op. cit. p. 71.

[582] Marshall, Review of Agriculture, Reports Western Department, p. 18.

[583] Parliamentary Reports, Commissioners (1897), xv. 32.

[584] Parliamentary Accounts and Papers, lxxx. 21. The number of those owning over 500 acres does not concern the small owner or the yeoman class, but they were: from 500 acres to 1,000, 4,799; from 1,000 to 2,000, 2,719; from 2,000 to 5,000, 1,815; from 5,000 to 10,000, 581; from 10,000 to 20,000, 223; from 20,000 to 50,000, 66; from 50,000 to 100,000, 3; over 100,000, 1. For the numbers of the 'holdings' of various sizes in 1875 and 1907 see below, p. 334. The term 'holdings', however, includes freeholds and leaseholds.