Page:Notes on the Anti-Corn Law Struggle.djvu/194



But where is now the goodly audit ale?

The purse-proud tenant, never known to fail?

The farm which never yet was left on hand?

The marsh reclaimed to most improving land?

The impatient hope of the expiring lease?

The doubling rental?"

Those who have had opportunities of observation have seen the effects of the prospect of the expiring lease and the doubling rental in encouraging profuse expenditure, and an increase of the number and magnitude of the demands on the increased rents. In the place of the old manor houses, costly and extensive mansions were built. It was as if the old manor houses, that seemed built for men of moderate means, had disappeared, and in their room had sprung up palaces such as kings or emperors might deign to dwell in. Some large landholders have been heard to declare that they pulled down some of those vast palaces which had been built before they came to the succession because they were too large for the estate. The only remedy that occurred to them being an increase of rent, even beyond that which had already taken place, the satirist represents their cry as being—