to hinder the poor from marrying, to discharge servants in their
last quarter, to evict small tenants, and pull down cottages; so
that several parishes were in a manner depopulated, while England
complained of a want of useful hands for agriculture, manufactories,
for the land and sea service. 'When the minister marries a couple,' he
said, 'he rightly prays that they may be fruitful in the procreation
of children; but most of the parishioners pray for the very contrary,
and perhaps complain of him for marrying persons, that, should they
have a family of children, might likewise become chargeable.' Arthur
Young also described the operation of the law in his time, in
clearing off the people, and causing universally 'an open war against
cottages.' Gentlemen bought them up whenever they had an opportunity,
and immediately levelled them with the ground, lest they should become
'nests of beggars' brats.' The removal of a cottage often drove the
industrious labourer from a parish where he could earn 15 s. a week,
to one where he could earn but 10 s. As many as thirty or forty
families were sent off by removals in one day. Thus, as among the
Scotch labourers of the present day, marriage was discouraged; the
peasantry were cleared off the land, and increasing immorality was the
necessary consequence.

There was another change in the old system, by which the interests of
the influential classes were made to run in favour of the 'beggars'
nests,' which were soon at a premium. The labourer was to be paid,
not for the value of his labour, but according to the number of his
family; the prices of provisions being fixed by authority, and the
guardians making up the difference between what the wages would buy
and what the family required.

The allowance scales issued from time to time were framed on the