[126] Inquiry into the Advantages and Disadvantages resulting from Bills of Enclosure, 1780, p. 14.
[127] Cf. Ashelworth, Cheshunt, Knaresborough.
[128] Previous to enclosure there were twenty-five farmers: the land is now divided among five or six persons only.
[129] It was then confidently said that several poor persons actually perished from want, and so great was the outcry that some of the farmers were hissed in the public market at Bicester.
[130] Dunkin’s Oxfordshire, pp. 2 and 3.
[131] F. Moore, Considerations on the Exorbitant Price of Proprietors, 1773, p. 22; quoted by Levy, p. 27.
[132] Essay on the Nature and Method of ascertaining the specific Share of Proprietors upon the Inclosure of Common fields, with observations on the inconveniences of common fields, etc., p. 22.
[133] The Kirton, Sutterton and Wigtoft (Lincs) Acts prescribed a penalty for taking turf or sod after the passing of the Act, of £10, and in default of payment imprisonment in the House of Correction with hard labour for three months.
[134] P. 235.
[135] The only provision for the poor in the Maulden Act, (36 Geo. III. c. 65) was a fuel allotment as a compensation for the ancient usage of cutting peat or moor turf. The trustees (rector, churchwarden and overseers) were to distribute the turf to poor families, and were to pay any surplus from the rent of the herbage to the poor rates.