APPENDIX. 55
creatures. It is certainly the duty of our Legislature
to correct this abuse of God's bounty. A residence
at Tunbridge Wells and a tour through Edridge,
Frank, and Henley, (the inhabitants of which appeared
miserably poor) to Crowborough, enabled me to form
some judgment and opinion on this subject. The
Woodlands in Sussex, some of them very unproductive,
amount to very many acres ; and the wastes of Sussex
contain above one hundred thousand acres. Saint
Leonard's Forest alone contains ten thousand, and Ash-
down Forest eighteen thousand. Here then is sufficient
to afford work and provision for all the unemployed hands
in Sussex and Kent, and for half a dozen more Counties ;
but strange to tell, the large and extensive parish of
Tunbridge, and that part of the parish of Speldhurst
adjoining, in which the Wells are situated, are both
subject to a very high poor-rate, at least six shillings
in the pound, in consequence of being obliged to
maintain a large number of poor labourers, for whom
they can find little employment but unproductive
labour; and the rate would be still higher but for
what is levied on the wealthy inhabitants and the libe-
rality of visitors to the Wells. The parish officers
are desirous to employ men wanting work in the
cultivation of land; but, though bordering on these
wastes, they can find no land, and are obliged to have
recourse to unnecessary works, or to set ten men to
do that, which two could perform equally well.
At Southborough an active and kind-hearted clergy-
man, with several benevolent gentlemen, have com-
menced the system of allotments, but all waste land