Page:Landholding in England.djvu/132

 parks, and covers, 6,000,000. The rent of the whole he put at £12,000,000; and the value of the annual produce at £22,275,000.

The following figures will show the increase in the poor rate in the eighteenth century as compared with that in the revenue and the National Debt. It must be remembered that the National Debt added a new and heavy item to the estimates— and to the taxes. The revenue increased, partly because there was now the interest on the Debt to pay. William III.'s wars— not undertaken for our benefit —entailed on us an annual burden of £1,310,242—or more than two-thirds of the whole average revenue twenty-two years before. Between 1603 and 1702 population cannot have doubled. At most it was not more than 5,000,000 at the end of Elizabeth's reign; the calculations of Gregory King make it about 5,180,000 in 1696. It is impossible to calculate the numbers of the poor much before 1673, because all accounts agree that during the first half of the century collections for the poor rate were systematically evaded. Probably the decrease in 1776 was due to the fact that every man who could be picked up was pressed for the army in America, the navy, or the East India Company's service.

This table is given by Eden in his "State of the Poor."

In 1640, "Stanley " says many say there are more than 80,000 "idle vagabonds in this land." At 3d. a day, this is £360,000 a year, and all for no good! In 1677 it was 4d.