[Footnote 23: These thefts are committed by degrees in a small way, seldom exceeding a truss of hay or a bushel of corn by one man at one time; and are generally of smaller articles. In some places the stealing of gate-hooks and iron-fastnings is so common as to compel the farmer both to hang and fasten his gates with wood. _Middleton._] "The Drivers of Gentlemen's carriages are intrusted to buy hay, straw, and corn, for their horses; in the doing which, they generally cheat their masters of 5_s._ in each load of hay, of 2_s._ 6_d._ in each load of straw, and 1_s._ in every quarter of corn. This gives them an interest in the consumption, makes them extremely wasteful, and brings on habits of dishonesty. "The Ostlers at the Inns on the sides of the roads, purchase stolen hay, straw, corn, eggs, and poultry. A person who kept a horse several weeks at one of these inns, in attending occasionally to see the animal, discovered him to be fed with wheat, barley and oats mixed together, which could only happen by the farmers' servants robbing their Master, and selling the corn to the Ostler."---- "The fields near London are never free from men strolling about in pilfering pursuits by day, and committing great crimes by night. The depredations every Sunday are astonishingly great. There are not many gardens within five miles of London, that escape being visited in a marauding way, very early on a Sunday morning, and the farmers' fields are plundered all day long of fruit, roots, cabbages, pulse and corn. Even the ears of wheat are cut from the sheaves, and carried away in the most daring manner in open day, in various ways, but mostly in bags containing about half a bushel each. It has been moderately estimated, that 20,000 bushels of all the various sorts are thus carried off every Sunday morning, and 10,000 more during the other six days of the week; or one million and a half of bushels in a year, which, if valued at so small a sum as sixpence each, would amount to £37,500. "The occupiers of many thousand acres round London, lose annually in this manner to the amount of much more than 20_s._ an acre. "A Miller near London being questioned as to small parcels of wheat brought to his mill to be ground, by a suspected person, soon after several barns had been robbed, answered, that any explanation on that head would put his mills in danger of being burnt. Well may the _farmers_ say, 'Their _property is not protected like that of other men_.'" Mr. Middleton calculates that the depredations committed on the landed interest probably amount to 4_s._ an acre per annum, on all the cultivated lands in England, or to eight millions of pounds sterling per annum: and including the injuries done by game and vermin, he supposes, that the farmers' property suffers to the amount of 10_s._ an acre, or nearly twenty millions annually.