"The crop of 1842 was seized on and sold at seven different times.
It was much more than sufficient to pay the rent, even though the
manure was carried away in the spring by the landlord; but those
seven different seizures, with seven different sales, with a number
of men receiving at each of the seven seizures 2s. 4d. a-day, as
keepers to watch the crop from the day of distraint to the day of
sale--those seven seizures on a crop which might have been all
seized and sold at one time, with only one set of
expenses--resulted, as they were intended to do, in nearly doubling
the rent. Moreover, the crop being distrained on while growing, was
cut down by people whom the landlord employed, although the tenant
and his family were standing unemployed; and to such work-people the
landlord can give any wages he chooses, to be deducted from the
tenant, up to 2s. 6d. a-day! even though the harvest wages of the
district be 8d. or 10d. a-day![41]--even though the tenant, who is
thus not allowed to give his own labour to his own farm, may, to
avoid starvation, be compelled to work to another employer for the
fourth part, to wit, 7-1/2d. a-day, of what the law obliges him to
pay for workmen on his own farm.

"It will give some proof of the exertions made by the tenant to pay
his way when I state, that, notwithstanding all the extraordinary
expenses of the seizures, and of the protracted and complicated
litigation, _the rent was paid by the autumn of 1842_. There as
nothing owing by Ring save a sum of L1 and odds, connected with the
expenses of a summons which had been decided against him on some
technical point of law."

Here it is stated, in the first place, _that from the summer assizes
1842, to the same period in 1843, Ring was nine times proceeded against
by ejectment_. Now the landlord could only proceed by ejectment in the
quarter-sessions' court, or in the superior courts. The
quarter-sessions' courts are held but _four times_ in the year, namely,
in January, April, July, and October. The sessions were only held _three
times_ within the period during which Ring is said to have been _nine
times_ sued by ejectment; and consequently, if Mr Shee were even
inclined, it would be impossible for him to have proceeded more than
_three times_ against him in the sessions court. But if he instituted
his suit in