Great Britain -- Description and travel; Great Britain -- Rural conditions
of this forest without trees you come into a country of but poorish
wettish land. Passing through the village of Uckfield, you find an
enclosed country, with a soil of a clay cast all the way to within about
three miles of Lewes, when you get to a chalk bottom, and rich land. I
was at Lewes at the beginning of last harvest, and saw the fine farms of
the Ellmans, very justly renowned for their improvement of the breed of
_South-Down sheep_, and the younger Mr. John Ellman not less justly
blamed for the part he had taken in propagating the errors of Webb Hall,
and thereby, however unintentionally, assisting to lead thousands to
cherish those false hopes that have been the cause of their ruin. Mr.
Ellman may say that he _thought_ he was right; but if he had read my
_New Year's Gift_ to the Farmers, published in the preceding January, he
could not think that he was right. If he had not read it, he ought to
have read it, before he appeared in print. At any rate, if no other
person had a right to censure his publications, I _had_ that right. I
will here notice a calumny, to which the above visit to Lewes gave rise;
namely, that I went into the neighbourhood of the Ellmans, to find out
whether they ill-treated their labourers! No man that knows me will
believe this. The facts are these: the Ellmans, celebrated farmers, had
made a great figure in the evidence taken before the Committee. I was at
WORTH, about twenty miles from Lewes. The harvest was begun. Worth is a
woodland country. I wished to know the state of the crops; for I was, at
that very time, as will be seen by referring to the date, beginning to
write my First Letter to the Landlords. Without knowing anything of the
matter myself, I asked my host, Mr. Brazier, what good corn country was
nearest to us. He said Lewes. Off I went, and he with me, in a
post-chaise. We had 20 miles to go and 20 back in the same chaise. A bad
road, and rain all the day. We put up at the White Hart, took another
chaise, went round, and saw the farms, through the window of the chaise,
having stopped at a little public-house to ask which were they, and
having stopped now and then to get a sample out of the sheaves of wheat,
came back to the White Hart, after being absent only about an hour and a
half, got our dinner, and got back to Worth before it was dark; and
never asked, and never intended to ask, one single question of any human
being as to the conduct or character of the Ellmans. Indeed the evidence
of the elder Mr. Ellman was so fair, so honest, and so useful,
particularly as relating _to the labourers_, that I could not possibly
suspect him of being a cruel or hard master. He told the Committee, that
when he began business, forty-five years ago, every man in the parish
brewed his own beer, and that now, not one man did it, unless he gave
him the malt! Why, here was by far the most valuable part of the whole
volume of evidence. Then, Mr. Ellman did not present a parcel of
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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