he cause of the riots and fires
was chiefly the cruel policy of paying the single men much below the
fair rate of wages. The object of the riots and fires was the same,
not the wanton destruction of property, but to obtain higher wages
which was too generally the result.

"Immediately after the fire at Guilden Morden, in 1831, I went to the
parish and found the farmers assembled in Vestry, the very morning
after the fire, consulting what they had better do to put their
labourers in a better state by raising their wages. I remonstrated
with them upon the impolicy of doing it then, as it would be a bonus
for such wickedness." [William Metcalfe and William Wedd.]

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MELDRETH.

John Burr (churchwarden) gives this answer:--

"Keep up the price of labour or there will be always cause to fear." A
very fair echo of the Guilden Morden farmers' sentiments referred to
above.

ROYSTON.

Dissatisfaction at the decreased parish allowance tended to produce
these acts of insubordination. [Gamaliel Docura, Vestry Clerk and
Assistant Overseer.]

WIMPOLE.

The fires were lighted up by malice in the breasts of the labourers
because the farmers pinched them in their wages; the riots may be
called an effort to recover their former rate of wages, and answered
their object. [Robert Withers, Land Agent.]

STOTFOLD.

At Stotfold the late Mr. John George Fordham, of Royston, with a
foresight and courage that did him lasting credit, used his influence,
at personal risk to himself, in suppressing the riots.

During the years of 1830-5, a period of great discontent ensued, and
incendiary fires continued to be of alarming frequency. Ashwell and
Bassingbourn suffered severely. Of the former it is said that nearly
all one side of the place was burned, and of the latter, in the course
of three or four years, most of the farm homesteads were destroyed.

The fires at Shelford deserve notice here, on account of the remarkable
circumstances surrounding them. In the first place the perpetrator,
John Stallan, was the last man executed for the crime of arson, and in
the second place his conviction was brought about by a strange piece of
circumstantial evidence. Stallan was a labourer of respectable
character and in constant work, and became one of the men attached to
the fire engine. The fire in respect to which he was convicted, was
discovered in time for the owner to run to it and pull out some of the
thatch, and with it