CHAPTER XVII.

THE ESTATE.

Let thistles grow instead of wheat, cockles instead of barley. JOB.

THE gentlemen, leaving the two young ladies to amuse themselves on the sea-coast, took a drive to Battledoor-hall to see the estate belonging to Sir Belfry, which had been advertised to be sold. Laird Shadow, however, had heard so much concerning the ruinous state of the agricultural interest in England, especially in the south of the kingdom, where there were no manufactories, that he was not of a mind to be in a hurry in parting with his money. Our party having put up at the George, which was the principal inn, as the landlord seemed to be an intelligent and communicative sort of a man, the Laird entered into conversation with him respecting affairs in the neighbourhood.

"Your roads, landlord, in this country, are unco gude," said the Laird; "a' the way frae Lunnen, the road is so smooth that ye might trundle an apple on't."

"Bad times make good roads," replied the landlord.

"How so?" asked the Laird.

"Because the poor, for some time, have been employed in improving the turnpike road to London, having little else to do," said the landlord.

"How come the poor to be so destitute of employment?" asked Lord Ringsdale, taking part in the conversation with a good deal of interest.

"The farmer can no longer afford to pay them for their labour," said the landlord; "they are thrown idle, and come upon the parish for relief. The overseer is glad to make them do something, for frequently we have from fifty to a hundred men out of work in this parish; and during the winter, numbers stood in the street, opposite his door, from morning to night."

"You understand, Laird Shadow," said his lordship, "that in England, the maintenance of the poor is provided for by law, and in order to levy a tax on every one who is not himself on the list of paupers, his property is valued and assessed according to its value." Addressing himself to the landlord, "How much do you pay a pound for poor rates in this parish this season?"

"We pay upwards of nineteen shillings in the pound," said the landlord, "but there are parishes who pay from twenty-seven to twenty-eight shillings."

That is more than the yearly rent of the property," said the Laird; "the poor then take more to keep them than the whole property in the parish is worth!""

"Not quite so much," said the Earl; "property is not assessed at a rack rent; perhaps at the time the assessment was made, it did not exceed onethird of the real value."

"But," said the landlord, "property has greatly fallen in value lately, and the poor rates keep increasing every year."

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The Laird gave a short cough, and scratching his head, thought that it was a lucky circumstance that he had stopped at the George instead of calling directly on Sir Belfry as he intended.

"What other burden is landed property encumbered with, besides poor rates and taxes," asked Laird Shadow.

"The great and little tithes," said Lord Ringsdale; "and you will learn to your cost, Laird, if you purchase an estate on this side of the Tweed, that the tithes are a great drawback on the value of landed property."

The landlord gave the Laird a succinct account of the tithes in Battledoor, and also informed him that tithes in general had proved so great a grievance to the farmers, that it had been in agitation to purchase the great tithes in order to get rid of them altogether.

"At the commencement of tithes in Great Britain, they were intended to support the poor, repair churches, and maintain the clergymen," said Lord Ringsdale.

"Yes," said the landlord, "but they are not applied to the building of churches, or maintaining the poor, but for supporting proud, fat, idle clergymen, to preach up humility and charity."

"If a' this is true," said Laird Shadow, "and I hae nae reason to doubt it, farming maun be in a wofu' plight in England; why, my Lord," he continued, they are ten times waur aff than we are in Scotland, and yet this is the merry England that they brag about."

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"A large landed proprietor in the neighbourhood," said the landlord, gave the overseers of this parish a farm, of considerable extent, for the benefit of the poor, for which they were to pay no rent, but merely the taxes; and as a proof of the

badness of the times, they have been unable to keep it, and have given it up."

"If the poor are so badly off here, and there is so much difficulty in maintaining them, why don't they go where work is more plenty?" asked the Laird, not more vexed to think on the distresses of the farmer than on the miserable condition of the labouring poor.

"Every parish has enough to do to maintain its own poor," said the landlord, "and when they do go out of the parish in search of employment, they cannot find it, and are again brought back to it."

"So then," said the Laird, "a poor man is here confined to his parish, as a tree to the soil in which it is planted."

"This evening," said the landlord, "there is a select vestry, which you can attend if you think proper."

The Laird went to the meeting by himself, as neither his lordship nor either of the young gentlemen would accompany him; and having seen Sir Belfry, who was present, and satisfied his desire to become more intimately acquainted with the poor laws and the management of the poor, he returned to the George and rejoined his company.

"O' a' the sights," said the Laird, "that e'er I saw in this warl', a parish meeting beats. O what a set o' mean, beggarly rascals they have brought the poor in England to, by their taxes and their poor laws."

"I am of opinion," said Lord Ringsdale, "that the whole system is a very bad one."

"In what respect, my Lord ?" asked Goslington, who, as well as Jonathan, knew but little of the condition of the poor, and till this afternoon, never supposed that it was near as wretched as they had heard it represented to be.

"The poor are not paid for their labour sufficiently to live and bring up a family, because the heavy taxes on the necessaries of life render it impossible for them to subsist on the low wages which they receive. They are, therefore, obliged to receive parochial relief, because they cannot be expected to starve. And it is not one of the least evils that attends this system, that having once received help from the parish, their feelings are blunted, and their spirit of independence is broken. The industrious, and the modest poor man, is left to starve, because he is ashamed to ask for assistance, while the idle and the bold-faced villain, lost to shame, is clamorous, and invents an endless variety of schemes to excite pity and live without working," replied his lordship.

"If some of them do live without working, they do not live without begging, for they have to beg and pray at parish meetings as if they were begging for their life," said the Laird; "and then they are turned out, and anither comes in, and he tells his pitifu' story neist, and then anither ane, till they hae a' set forth their grievances, and such an account of wretchedness and misery as I have heard this night, I never heard in my life before."

"But why do the poor marry," said Goslington, interrupting him, "since they know that they are unable to maintain a family?"

"Na, ye hae just speert exactly the wrang quastion," retorted his father; "ye should have asked why a man that's baith able and willing to work, has little or naithing to do, and gets as little for what he does do; but for a' that, I'll tell you what maks him marry; he canna live sae weel single as he can do married, for the overseers hardly give a single man as muckle to live on as wad feed a hen,