immediately around me. I had just been sympathizing with the
forlorn inhabitants of the workhouse at Wandsworth, at the distance of
only a mile; and half a dozen other such receptacles of misery invited
commiseration within equal distances, in other directions; yet a
radius of a few hundred yards round this spot would have included as
much unappropriated and useless land as might have sufficed to confer
independence and plenty on their hopeless inmates! In the
north-eastern direction, within a distance of ten miles, at least
twenty thousand families might be discovered pining in squalid misery;
though here I found myself in an unpeopled and uncultivated tract,
nearly four miles square, and containing above fifteen thousand acres
of good soil, capable of affording independent subsistence to half as
many families!

I could not help exclaiming against the perversity of reason--the
indifference of power--the complication of folly--and the ascendancy
of turpitude, which, separately or conjointly, continue to produce
circumstances so cruel and preposterous! Let it be recorded, said I,
to the eternal disgrace of all modern statesmen, of many hundreds of
ambitious legislators, and of our scientific economists, that in this
luxuriant county of Surrey, there still exist, without productive
cultivation, no less than 25,000 acres of open commons; 30,000 acres
of useless parks, 48,000 acres of heaths, and 30,000 acres of chalk
hills, serving but to subsist a few herds of deer and cattle, and to
grow some unproductive trees, though at the very instant 10,000
families in the same county are dependent on the bounty of their
respective parishes! Is this, said I, the vaunted age of reason? Are
these the genuine fruits of civilization? Do such circumstances
indicate the ascendency of benevolence? Do they not rather demonstrate
that the principle of doing to others as we would be done unto, has
little influence on the practices of our Statesmen and Legislators?

I may be told, that the principle of enclosing waste lands has long
been recognised in the prevailing system of economy, and that the
Legislature is incessantly active in passing Bills for new enclosures.
But, I ask, for whom, and for whose benefit, are these bills passed?
Do they provide for the poor? Do they help those who require help? Do
they, by augmenting the supply, make provisions cheaper? Do they
increase the number of independent fire-sides?--Rather, do they not
wanton