Rural Rides Page 53

  However, I am aware that it is quite useless to address observations of this sort to you. I am quite aware of that; and yet, there are circumstances, in your present situation, which, one would think, ought to make you not very gay upon the hanging of the two men at Winchester. It delights me, I assure you, to see the situation that you are in; and I shall, therefore, now, once more, and for the last time, address you upon that subject.

  We all remember how haughty, how insolent you have been. We all bear in mind your conduct for the last thirty-five years; and the feeling of pleasure at your present state is as general as it is just. In my ten Letters to you, I told you that you would lose your estates. Those of you who have any capacity, except that which is necessary to enable you to kill wild animals, see this now, as clearly as I do; and yet you evince no intention to change your courses. You hang oh with unrelenting grasp; and cry ‘pauper’ and ‘poacher’ and ‘radical’ and ‘lower orders’ with as much insolence as ever! It is always thus: men like you may be convinced of error; but they never change their conduct. They never become just because they are convinced that they have been unjust: they must have a great deal more than that conviction to make them just.

  Such was what I then addressed to the Landlords. How well it fits the present time! They are just in the same sort of mess, now, that they were in in 1822. But, there is this most important difference, that the paper-money cannot now be put out, in a quantity sufficient to save them, without producing not only a ‘late panic’, worse than the last, but, in all probability, a total blowing up of the whole system, game-laws, new-trespass laws, tread-mill, Sunday tolls, six-acts, sun-set and sun-rise laws, apple-felony laws, select-vestry laws, and all the whole THING, root and trunk and branch! Aye, not sparing, perhaps, even the tent, or booth of induction, at Draycot Foliot! Good Lord! How should we be able to live without game-laws! And tread-mills, then? And Sunday-tolls? How should we get on without pensions, sinecures, tithes and the other ‘glorious institutions’ of this ‘mighty empire’? Let us turn, however, from the thought; but, bearing this in mind, if you please, Messieurs the game-people; that if, no matter in what shape and under what pretence; if, I tell you, paper be put out again, sufficient to raise the price of a South Down ewe to the last year’s mark, the whole system goes to atoms. I tell you that; mind it; and look sharp about you, O ye fat parsons; for tithes and half-pay will, be you assured, never, from that day, again go in company into parson’s pocket.

  In this North of Hampshire, as every where else, the churches and all other things exhibit indubitable marks of decay. There are along under the North side of that chain of hills, which divide Hampshire from Berkshire, in this part, taking into Hampshire about two or three miles wide of the low ground along under the chain, eleven churches along in a string in about fifteen miles, the chancels of which would contain a great many more than all the inhabitants, men, women, and children, sitting at their ease with plenty of room. How should this be otherwise, when, in the parish of Burghclere, one single farmer holds by lease, under LORD CARNARVON, as one farm, the lands that men, now living, can remember to have formed fourteen farms, bringing up, in a respectable way, fourteen families. In some instances these small farmhouses and homesteads are completely gone; in others the buildings remain, but in a tumble-down state; in others the house is gone, leaving the barn for use as a barn or as a cattle-shed; in others, the out-buildings are gone, and the house, with rotten thatch, broken windows, rotten door-sills, and all threatening to fall, remains as the dwelling of a half-starved and ragged family of labourers, the grand-children, perhaps, of the decent family of small farmers that formerly lived happily in this very house. This, with few exceptions, is the case all over England; and, if we duly consider the nature and tendency of the hellish system of taxing, of funding, and of paper-money it must be so. Then, in this very parish of Burghclere, there was, until a few months ago, a famous cock-parson, the ‘Honourable and Reverend’ GEORGE HERBERT, who had grafted the parson upon the soldier and the justice upon the parson; for, he died, a little while ago, a half-pay officer in the army, rector of two parishes, and chairman of the quarter sessions of the county of Hants! Mr HONE gave us, in his memorable ‘House that Jack built’, a portrait of the ‘Clerical Magistrate’. Could not he, or somebody else, give us a portrait of the military and of the naval parson? For, such are to be found all over the kingdom. Wherever I go, I hear of them. And yet, there sits Burdett, and even Sir Bobby of the Borough,4 and say not a word upon the subject! This is the case: the King dismissed SIR BOBBY from the half-pay list, scratched his name out, turned him off, stopped his pay. Sir Bobby complained, alleging, that the half-pay was a reward for past services. No, no, said the Ministers: it is a retaining fee for future services. Now, the law is, and the Parliament declared, in the case of parson Home Tooke, that once a parson always a parson, and that a parson cannot, of course, again serve as an officer under the crown. Yet these military and naval parsons have ‘a retaining fee for future military and naval services’! Never was so barefaced a thing before heard of in the world. And yet there sits SIR BOBBY, stripped of his ‘retaining fee’, and says not a word about the matter; and there sit the big Whigs, who gave Sir Bobby the subscription, having sons, brothers, and other relations, military and naval parsons, and the big Whigs, of course, bid Sir Bobby (albeit given enough to twattle) hold his tongue upon the subject; and there sit Mr WETHERSPOON (I think it is), and the rest of Sir Bobby’s Rump, toasting ‘the independence of the Borough and its member’!

  ‘That’s our case,’ as the lawyers say: match it if you can, devil, in all your roamings up and down throughout the earth! I have often been thinking, and, indeed, expecting, to see Sir Bobby turn parson himself, as the likeliest way to get back his half-pay. If he should have ‘a call’, I do hope we shall have him for parson at Kensington; and, as an inducement, I promise him, that I will give him a good thumping Easter-offering.

  In former RIDES, and especially in 1821 and 1822,1 described very fully this part of Hampshire. The land is a chalk bottom, with a bed of reddish, stiff loam, full of flints, at top. In those parts where the bed of loam and flints is deep the land is arable or woods: where the bed of loam and flints is so shallow as to let the plough down to the chalk, the surface is downs. In the deep and long valleys, where there is constantly, or occasionally, a stream of water, the top soil is blackish, and the surface meadows. This has been the distribution from all antiquity, except that, in ancient times, part of that which is now downs and woods was corn-land, as we know from the marks of the plough. And yet the Scotch fellows would persuade us, that there were scarcely any inhabitants in England before it had the unspeakable happiness to be united to that fertile, warm, and hospitable country, where the people are so well off, that they are above having poor-rates!

  The tops of the hills here are as good corn-land as any other part; and it is all excellent corn-land, and the fields and woods singularly beautiful. Never was there what may be called a more hilly country, and all in use. Coming from Burghclere, you come up nearly a mile of steep hill, from the top of which you can see all over the country, even to the Isle of Wight; to your right a great part of Wiltshire; into Surrey on your left; and, turning round, you see, lying below you, the whole of Berkshire, great part of Oxfordshire, and part of Gloucestershire. This chain of lofty hills was a great favourite with Kings and rulers in ancient times. At HIGHCLERE, at COMBE and at other places, there are remains of great encampments, or fortifications; and, KINGSCLERE was a residence of the Saxon Kings, and continued to be a royal residence long after the Norman Kings came. KING JOHN, when residing at KINGSCLERE, founded one of the charities which still exists in the town of Newbury, which is but a few miles from Kingsclere.

  From the top of this lofty chain, you come to Uphusband (or the Upper Hurstbourne) over two miles or more of ground, descending in the way that the body of a snake descends (when he is going fast) from the high part, near the head, down to the tail; that i
s to say, over a series of hill and dell, but the dell part going constantly on increasing upon the hilly part, till you come down to this village; and then you, continuing on (southward) towards Andover, go up, directly, half a mile of hill so steep, as to make it very difficult for an ordinary team with a load, to take that load up it. So this Up-hurstbourne (called so because higher up the valley than the other Hurstbournes) the flat part of the road to which, from the north, comes in between two side-hills, is in as narrow and deep a dell as any place that I ever saw. The houses of the village are, in great part, scattered about, and are amongst very lofty and fine trees; and, from many, many points round about, from the hilly fields, now covered with the young wheat, or with scarcely less beautiful sainfoin, the village is a sight worth going many miles to see. The lands, too, are pretty beyond description. These chains of hills make, below them, an endless number of lower hills, of varying shapes and sizes and aspects and of relative state as to each other; while the surface presents, in the size and form of the fields, in the woods, the hedge-rows, the sainfoin, the young wheat, the turnips, the tares, the fallows, the sheep-folds and the flocks, and, at every turn of your head, a fresh and different set of these; this surface all together presents that which I, at any rate, could look at with pleasure for ever. Not a sort of country that I like so well as when there are downs and a broader valley and more of meadow; but, a sort of country that I like next to that; for, here, as there, there are no ditches, no water-furrows, no dirt, and never any drought to cause inconvenience. The chalk is at bottom, and it takes care of all. The crops of wheat have been very good here this year and those of barley not very bad. The sainfoin has given a fine crop of the finest sort of hay in the world, and, this year, without a drop of wet.

  I wish, that, in speaking of this pretty village (which I always return to with additional pleasure), I could give a good account of the state of those, without whose labour there would be neither com nor sainfoin nor sheep. I regret to say, that my account of this matter, if I gave it truly, must be a dismal account indeed! For, I have, in no part of England, seen the labouring people so badly off as they are here. This has made so much impression on me, that I shall enter fully into the matter with names, dates, and all the particulars in the IVth Number of the ‘POOR MAN’S FRIEND’.5 This is one of the great purposes for which I take these ‘Rides’. I am persuaded, that, before the day shall come when my labours must cease I shall have mended the meals of millions. I may over-rate the effects of my endeavours; but, this being my persuasion, I should be guilty of a great neglect of duty, were I not to use those endeavours.

  Andover, Sunday, 15th October

  I went to Weyhill, yesterday, to see the close of the hop and of the cheese fair; for, after the sheep, these are the principal articles. The crop of hops has been, in parts where they are grown, unusually large and of super-excellent quality. The average price of the Farnham hops has been as nearly as I can ascertain, seven pounds for a hundred weight; that of Kentish hops, five pounds, and that of the Hampshire and Surrey hops (other than those of Farnham), about five pounds also. The prices are, considering the great weight of the crop, very good; but, if it had not been for the effects of ‘late panic’ (proceeding, as BARING said, from a plethora of money’,) these prices would have been a full third, if not nearly one half, higher; for, though the crop has been so large and so good, there was hardly any stock on hand; the country was almost wholly without hops.

  As to cheese, the price, considering the quantity, has been not one half so high as it was last year. The fall in the positive price has been about 20 per cent, and the quantity made in 1826 has not been above two-thirds as great as that made in 1825. So that, here is a fall of one-half ‘in real relative price; that is to say, the farmer, while he has the same rent to pay that he paid last year, has only half as much money to receive for cheese, as he received for cheese last year; and observe, on some farms, cheese is almost the only saleable produce.

  After the fair was over, yesterday, I came down from the Hill (3 miles) to this town of ANDOVER; which has, within the last 20 days, been more talked of, in other parts of the kingdom, than it ever was before from the creation of the world to the beginning of those 20 days. The THOMAS ASHETON SMITHS and the SIR JOHN POLLENS, famous as they have been under the banners of the Old Navy Purser, George Rose, and his successors, have never, even since the death of poor TURNER, been half so famous, they and this CORPORATION, whom they represent, as they have been since the MEETING which they held here, which ended in their defeat and confusion, pointing them out as worthy of that appellation of ‘POOR DEVILS’, which POLLEN thought proper to give to those labourers, without whose toil his estate would not be worth a single farthing.

  Having laid my plan to sleep at Andover last night, I went with two Farnham friends, Messrs Knowles and West, to dine at the ordinary at the GEORGE INN, which is kept by one SUTTON, a rich old fellow, who wore a round-skirted sleeved fustian waistcoat, with a dirty white apron tied round his middle, and with no coat on; having a look the eagerest and the sharpest that I ever saw in any set of features in my whole life-time; having an air of authority and of mastership, which to a stranger, as I was, seemed quite incompatible with the meanness of his dress and the vulgarity of his manners; and there being, visible to every beholder, constantly going on in him, a pretty even contest between the servility of avarice and the insolence of wealth. A great part of the farmers and other fair-people having gone off home, we found preparations made for dining only about ten people. But, after we sat down, and it was seen that we designed to dine, guests came in apace, the preparations were augmented, and as many as could dine came and dined with us.

  After the dinner was over, the room became fuller and fuller; guests came in from the other inns, where they had been dining, till, at last, the room became as full as possible in every part, the door being opened, the door-way blocked up, and the stairs, leading to the room, crammed from bottom to top. In this state of things, Mr Knowles, who was our chairman, gave my health, which, of course, was followed by a speech; and, as the reader will readily suppose, to have an opportunity of making a speech was the main motive for my going to dine at an inn, at any hour, and especially at seven o’clock at night. In this speech, I, after descanting on the present devastating ruin, and on those successive acts of the Ministers and the parliament by which such ruin had been produced; after remarking on the shuffling, the tricks, the contrivances from 1797 up to last March, I proceeded to offer to the company my reasons for believing, that no attempt would be made to relieve the farmers and others, by putting out the paper-money again, as in 1822, or by a bank-restriction. Just as I was stating these my reasons, on a prospective matter of such deep interest to my hearers, amongst whom were land-owners, land-renters, cattle and sheep dealers, hop and cheese producers and merchants, and even one, two or more, country bankers; just as I was engaged in stating my reasons for my opinion on a matter of such vital importance to the parties present, who were all listening to me with the greatest attention; just at this time, a noise was heard, and a sort of row was taking place in the passage, the cause of which was, upon inquiry, found to be no less a personage than our landlord, our host SUTTON, who, it appeared, finding that my speech-making had cut off, or, at least, suspended, all intercourse between the dining, now become a drinking, room and the bar; who, finding that I had been the cause of a great ‘restriction in the exchange’ of our money for his ‘neat’ ‘genuine’ commodities down stair, and being, apparently, an ardent admirer of the ‘liberal’ system of ‘free trade’ who, finding, in short, or, rather, supposing, that, if my tongue were not stopped from running, his taps would be, had, though an old man, fought, or, at least, forced his way up the thronged stairs and through the passage and doorway, into the room, and was (with what breath the struggle had left him) beginning to bawl out to me, when some one called to him, and told him that he was causing an interruption, to which he answered, that that was what he had come t
o do! And then he went on to say, in so many words, that my speech injured his sale of liquor!

  The disgust and abhorrence, which such conduct could not fail to excite, produced, at first, a desire to quit the room and the house, and even a proposition to that effect. But, after a minute or so, to reflect, the company resolved not to quit the room, but to turn him out of it who had caused the interruption; and the old fellow, finding himself tackled, saved the labour of shoving, or kicking, him out of the room, by retreating out of the door-way with all the activity of which he was master. After this I proceeded with my speech-making; and, this being ended, the great business of the evening, namely, drinking, smoking, and singing, was about to be proceeded in by a company, who had just closed an arduous and anxious week, who had before them a Sunday morning to sleep in, and whose wives were, for the far greater part, at a convenient distance. An assemblage of circumstances, more auspicious to ‘free trade’ in the ‘neat’ and ‘genuine’, has seldom occurred! But, now behold, the old fustian-jacketed fellow, whose head was, I think, powdered, took it into that head not only to lay ‘restrictions’ upon trade, but to impose an absolute embargo; cut off entirely all supplies whatever from his bar to the room, as long as I remained in that room. A message to this effect, from the old fustian man, having been, through the waiter, communicated to Mr KNOWLES, and he having communicated it to the company, I addressed the company in nearly these words: ‘Gentlemen, born and bred, as you know I was, on the borders of this county, and fond, as I am of bacon, Hampshire hogs have, with me, always been objects of admiration rather than of contempt; but that which has just happened here, induces me to observe, that this feeling of mine has been confined to hogs of four legs. For my part, I like your company too well to quit it. I have paid this fellow six SHILLINGS for the wing of a fowl, a bit of bread, and a pint of small beer. I have a right to sit here; I want no drink, and those who do, being refused it here, have a right to send to other houses for it, and to drink it here.’