Page:The English Peasant.djvu/78

 March 13th, 1844, he said:—"In former times every cottage almost had some common rights, from which the poor occupants derived much benefit; the privilege of feeding a cow, a pig, or a goose on the common was a great benefit to them, and it was unfortunate, when a system of inclosing commons first commenced, that a portion of the land was not set apart for the benefit of every cottager who enjoyed common rights, and his successors; but the course adopted had been to compensate the owner of the cottage to which the common rights belonged, forgetting the claims of the occupier by whom they were enjoyed."

Had the loss of these common rights been balanced by a share in the material progress of the country, the agricultural labourer would not have been much worse treated by these Inclosure Acts than the bulk of the community, but since 1815 their wages have declined, while there has been an increase in the cost of living.

The fictitious prosperity that arose during the war only made the subsequent destitution harder to bear. From 1815 to 1846 was a period of continually recurring distress amongst the agriculturists, and the unhappy labourers sank almost universally into pauperism. Their wages fell to zero, if we may use that term to imply the lowest point to which they could fall compatible with continued existence. In different countries they varied from 7s. to 12s. a week. In Cambridgeshire the farmers paid 8s. and beer, which made it 9s. 6d., but they said it was only intimidation made them pay such prices. The labourers grew desperate, and in 1830 there were a series of incendiary fires, extending for more than eighteen months, in the counties of Wiltshire, Hampshire, Berkshire, and Buckinghamshire.

But these efforts were like the struggles of a dying man, fitful, and each time perceptibly weaker During the winter of 1845-46 the agonised sufferer was dimly seen writhing in the dark. In the newspapers of the time there were accounts of gatherings of the labourers, with their wives and children, at night, on moors and commons, under circumstances that gave a weird-like character to the proceedings. At one held near Wootton-Basset, on a cold winter's night, the speakers, one after the other, gave accounts of their own sufferings and those of their families, quite