poverty which became the nightmare of local administra-
tion. The small proprietor -- the peasant or yeoman -- suf-
fered in a similar way. More often than not he lacked the
capital for enclosure: if he was a small tenant farmer, he
became unprofitable to his landlord and out he went. The
dispossessed swelled the ranks of the rural poor or were
eaten up by the towns. Yet not all the yeomen suffered. The
landlords wanted intelligent and industrious men to work
the new large farms and these the yeomen class provided,
but for one who prospered there were a score who lost.

Hungry men will snare and poach. For decades country
gentlemen, great or small, had been paying increasing atten-
tion to their property rights over the birds of the air or the
fish in the streams. As they controlled Parliament, it was
easy to give the force of law to their desires; and the poor
went hungrier than before. Nevertheless, they were not
allowed to die of starvation. The Elizabethan poor law, later
modified by the Stuarts, was still operative. The parish was
responsible for relief. In the twenties and thirties of this
century the problem of the rural poor, especially in South-
ern England, became too heavy for the single parish to bear.
In 1723 Parliament enabled parishes to combine for the
purpose of erecting a workhouse -- hence the word 'Union'
which is often still applied by the poor to workhouses.
These 'unions' were then hired out to any manufacturer
who, in return for keeping the inmates alive, obtained cheap
labour. To prevent the pauper children absconding they
were at times ringed by the neck or manacled. In lean
years the despair of the poor became unendurable; food
riots, with burning, looting and mob violence were a com-
monplace. The militia suppressed them and hangings and
transportations followed. Rural poverty and the fear of
workhouses does much to explain the lure of the disease-
ridden and dangerous life of the towns.

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