es, to make sure of being
"provided for by the parish." Population increased to beyond the
requirements for local industry; the law of settlement was squeezed to
the utmost against removals, and thus the farmer was creating the
Nemesis he was seeking to flee from.

In many cases wages were as low as 8s. per week, the difference being
made up according to the labourer's increasing family, and "if he makes
more, still he receives his allowance in order that industry may not be
discouraged."

At Over on one occasion, Mr. Robinson, the overseer, refused payment to
men who would not keep their proper hours at work upon the road. "They
complained to the Bench at Cambridge, and beat him as usual," so says
the report, and not only that, but they returned home wearing favours
in their hats and button-holes, and in the evening collected in a body
before Mr. Robinson's house and shouted in triumph!

The report for the parish of Bottisham showed that the effect of the
scale for single young men when not working, or receiving less wage
than the scale, was that one family, consisting of man, wife, and seven
children, were entitled to and were at that time receiving 19s. 6d. a
week (over and above their earnings) from the parish, several of the
sons being grown up!

"At Little Shelford," says the Commissioner, "a worse case than this
was given me by the Acting Overseer, of one family, a man, wife, and
four sons, living together, receiving 24s. weekly from the parish"!

The effect of this pauperising system could not fail to be very
disastrous--it placed a direct premium upon idleness, as a man was sure
of a living from the rates even if he did not work, and also a bounty
upon wages, or an inducement for the farmer to pay a much lower wage
than he could afford. The ultimate effect of both these circumstances
was that there was such a large amount of pauper labour that it became
necessary, in order to relieve the rates, to take care that such labour
should be employed before any other. In some cases the unemployed men
were actually put up to auction, or rather {165} their labour, and an
instance is mentioned in the Commissioners' report of ten men in one
parish being knocked down to one farmer for five shillings, and that
out of a body of 170 men, 70 were let in this manner! The parish also
meddled and muddled in the labour market by making a contract with some
individual to have certain work performed by the paupers at a give