[146] Thomas Ruggles (1737–1813), author of History of the Poor, published in 1793, Deputy-Lieutenant of Essex and Suffolk.
[147] Sir Henry Gould, 1710–1794.
[148] The Annals of Agriculture (vol. xvii. p. 293) contains a curious apology by a gleaner in 1791 to the owner of some fields, who had begun legal proceedings against her and her husband. ‘Whereas I, Margaret Abree, wife of Thomas Abree, of the city of New Sarum, blacksmith, did, during the barley harvest, in the month of September last, many times wilfully and maliciously go into the fields of, and belonging to, Mr. Edward Perry, at Clarendon Park, and take with me my children, and did there leaze, collect, and carry away a quantity of barley.... Now we do hereby declare, that we are fully convinced of the illegality of such proceedings, and that no person has a right to leaze any sort of grain, or to come on any field whatsoever, without the consent of the owner; and are also truly sensible of the obligation we are under to the said Edward Perry for his lenity towards us, inasmuch as the damages given, together with the heavy cost incurred, would have been much greater than we could possibly have discharged, and must have amounted to perpetual imprisonment, as even those who have least disapproved of our conduct, would certainly not have contributed so large a sum to deliver us from the legal consequences of it. And we do hereby faithfully promise never to be guilty of the same, or any like offence in future. Thomas Abree, Margaret Abree. Her + Mark.’ It is interesting to compare with this judge-made law of England the Mosaic precept: ‘And when ye reap the harvest of your land, thou shalt not make clean riddance of the corners of thy field when thou reapest, neither shalt thou gather any gleaning of thy harvest: thou shalt leave them unto the poor, and to the stranger’ (Leviticus xxiii. 22).
[149] Kent, Hints, p. 238.
[150] P. 34; cf. Marshall on the Southern Department, p. 9, ‘Yorkshire bacon, generally of the worst sort, is retailed to the poor from little chandlers’ shops at an advanced price, bread in the same way.’
[151] Notes on the Agriculture of Norfolk, p. 165.
[152] Large and Small Holdings, p. 11.
[153] Young’s Political Arithmetic, quoted by Lecky, vol. vii. p. 263 note.
[154] See Appendix B for six of these budgets.
[155] Ruggles, Annals of Agriculture, vol. xiv. p. 205.