Great Britain -- Description and travel; Great Britain -- Rural conditions
The parish of Milton does, as we have seen, produce food, drink,
clothing, and all other things, enough for 502 families, or 2510 persons
upon my allowance, which is a great deal more than three times the
present allowance, because the present allowance includes clothing,
fuel, tools, and everything. Now, then, according to the "Population
Return," laid before Parliament, this parish contains 500 persons, or,
according to my division, one hundred families. So that here are about
_one hundred_ families to raise food and drink enough, and to raise
wool and other things to pay for all other necessaries, for _five
hundred_ and _two_ families! Aye, and five hundred and two families fed
and lodged, too, on my liberal scale. Fed and lodged according to the
present scale, this one hundred families raise enough to supply more,
and many more, than fifteen hundred families; or seven thousand five
hundred persons! And yet those who do the work are half starved! In the
100 families there are, we will suppose, 80 able working men, and as
many boys, sometimes assisted by the women and stout girls. What a
handful of people to raise such a quantity of food! What injustice, what
a hellish system it must be, to make those who raise it skin and bone
and nakedness, while the food and drink and wool are almost all carried
away to be heaped on the fund-holders, pensioners, soldiers,
dead-weight, and other swarms of tax-eaters! If such an operation do not
need putting an end to, then the devil himself is a saint.
Thus it must be, or much about thus, all the way down this fine and
beautiful and interesting valley. There are 29 agricultural parishes,
the two last being in town; being Fisherton and Salisbury. Now,
according to the "Population Return," the whole of these 29 parishes
contain 9,116 persons; or, according to my division, 1,823 families.
There is no reason to believe, that the proportion that we have seen in
the case of Milton does not hold good all the way through; that is,
there is no reason to suppose, that the produce does not exceed the
consumption in every other case in the same degree that it does in the
case of Milton. And indeed if I were to judge from the number of houses
and the number of ricks of corn, I should suppose that the excess was
still greater in several of the other parishes. But, supposing it to be
no greater; supposing the same proportion to continue all the way from
Watton Rivers to Stratford Dean, then here are 9,116 persons raising
food and raiment sufficient for 45,580 persons, fed and lodged according
to my scale; and sufficient for 136,740 persons, according to the scale
on which the unhappy labourers of this fine valley are now fed and
lodged!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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