[226] Davies, p. 28.
[227] Ibid., p. 118.
[228] Eden, vol. iii. p. 805.
[229] P. 179.
[230] Cf. also Eden’s description of a labourer’s expenses, vol. iii. p. 797, where he says that whilst hedging and ditching, they are allowed to take home a faggot every evening, whilst the work lasts, ‘but this is by no means sufficient for his consumption: his children, therefore, are sent into the fields, to collect wood where they can; and neither hedges nor trees are spared by the young marauders, who are thus, in some degree, educated in the art of thieving.’
[231] Vol. ii. p. 231.
[232] Cf. also for the difficulties of the poor in getting fuel, the account by the Rev. Dr. Glasse; Reports on Poor, vol. i. p. 58. ‘Having long observed, that there is scarcely any article of life, in respect to which the poor are under greater difficulties, or for the supply of which they have stronger temptations to dishonest practices, than that of fuel,’ he laid up in summer a store of coals in Greenford (Middlesex), and Wanstead, and sold them rather under original cost price, carriage free, in winter. ‘The benefit arising from the relief afforded them in this article of coals, is obvious: they are habituated to pay for what they have; whereas at the shop they ran in debt. When their credit was at an end, they contrived to do without coals, by having recourse to wood-stealing; than which I know no practise which tends more effectually to introduce into young minds a habit of dishonesty; it is also very injurious to the farmer, and excites a degree of resentment in his breast, which, in many instances, renders him averse to affording relief to the poor, even when real necessity calls loudly for it.’
[233] 20 George II. c. 19.
[234] Annals of Agriculture, vol. xxv. p. 305 ff.
[235] Annals of Agriculture, vol. xxv. p. 298.