Domestic Encyclopædia (1802)/Commons

COMMONS are waste lands or pastures, the use of which is common to the villages or towns in their vicinity.

Commons are certainly of considerable utility in their present state, if they be not too extensive. The poor may derive some benefit from them, without depriving the community of their labour; but when they extend to eight or ten miles in a straight line, and the surrounding country is but thinly inhabited, we conceive them to be extremely hurtful to society; inasmuch as they hold forth an irresistible temptation to sloth and idleness. Although they furnish pasture for a great number of sheep and young cattle, yet we doubt whether this advantage is not overbalanced by the loss which the nation necessarily sustains in being deprived of the labour of numerous persons, to whom they present the means of leading an idle life, and often wasting that time which might be occupied by more useful pursuits. Hence we devoutly hope, that a more general inclosure of the most extensive commons will soon be adopted; a measure which cannot fail to excite a spirit of emulation and improvement among the lower classes, and thus effectually to eradicate habits of indolence. And, if only one-third of such lands could be cultivated to raise grain, we may venture to say, that one acre, so employed, would produce more food than ten acres afford in their present state.

Independently of the great addition to the national wealth, such an inclosure will necessarily prove the means of employing many poor persons, who are starving for want of work, in various distant parts of the kingdom; while, the worthless and profligate consumers, especially from large cities, may, by the wisdom of the legislature, be thus reclaimed, and become useful members of that society, to which they have hitherto been a pest, and a burthen. See Farms.