alling so much upon the rates, and at
the above meeting when a rate was produced to be signed for the purpose
of defraying the expense of the soup kitchen "A division arose, the
majority being in favour of the rate being signed."

{59}

With the approach of winter, things became critical, and in November we
learn that--

"A Quantity of Rice having been provided by several gentlemen of this
town who have generously offered to give up the same to the Parish at
Prime cost; Resolved that the offer be accepted and that the same be
paid for by the Overseers for the benefit of the Poor." A Committee
was formed for dispensing the same.

At this time nearly the whole of the labouring population must have
been upon the parish or next door to it, and the suffering rate-payers
made one more appeal to the farmers, for in November, at a meeting on
the subject--

"It was resolved that it be recommended to the Farmers of this Town to
allow their Labourers such wages as may prevent them from becoming
chargeable to the Parish, and it is also recommended that such Men as
belong to the Parish be employed in Preference to others."

This feeling was apparently prompted by the knowledge of the fact that
the farmers were reaping a harvest out of the famine, while other
ratepayers, such as the small tradesmen, were suffering as well as the
poor. It was not, however, every farmer who had any wheat to sell at
the famine prices then ruling, and hence any uniform plan of raising
wages became hopeless. The course taken by the farmers and others to
whom these appeals were made, was, to say the least, unfortunate, and
led to no end of trouble in after years. The parish was obliged to
step in, and to save the people from starvation, fixed a kind of
minimum scale of income upon which each family could subsist, according
to the number in family and the price of bread, and simply made up the
difference between the wages and the standard. The effect of this was
to pauperise for the time the whole labouring population, and that the
ratepayers, employing no labourers themselves, had to help to pay for
those who did!

In the evidence collected by Sir Frederick Eden in 1795 as to the
earnings and cost of maintenance of labourers' families, six families
were taken from the parish of Hinxworth, representing Hertfordshire,
and the earnings of each family averaged 12s. 6 1/2d., and their
necessary expenditure exceeded their receipts by L22 3s. 6 1/2d