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rent and in small portions to industrious cottagers of good character. The Act then proceeds to empower the vestry to receive in the month of September in every year applications from industrious cottagers of good character, being day labourers or journeymen settled in and living in or near the parish, and to let portions of such allotments to such applicants, not exceeding one acre to any individual. The rent was to be such as land of the same quality usually let for in the same parish. No habitations could be erected on the allotments, and there was power to evict for not duly cultivating the land as well as for non-payment of rent. If the land allotted to the poor under the Inclosure Act was too far from the residence of the cottagers, the vestry were authorised to let it, and to hire other land better situated for the cottagers.
1884. 5 & 6 WALL.
The powers of the churchwardens and overseers under all the above Acts were, in 1836, transferred to the boards of guardians appointed under the 69, a. 4 Poor Law Act of 1834, as well as under local Acts.
Acts.
Coming next to the Inclosure Acts, it will be found that under the II. Inclosure General Inclosure Act of 1845 there is power (s. 31) for the Commissioners in making a Provisional Order for the inclosure of any waste subject to rights of common exerciseable at all times of the year, to require some portion to be appropriated as an allotment for the labouring poor, and the same Act provided (ss. 108-112) for its management by the incumbent and one church- warden and two other persons elected annually by the vestry, who were styled "allotment-wardens." The land was to be let in gardens not exceeding a quarter of an acre to the poor inhabitants of the parish, free of tithe or tithe rent-charge and rates and taxes, but at a reut not below the full yearly value of the land for farming purposes as ascertained by decennial valuations to be made by a competent person appointed by the allotment wardens. Any surplus of rent, after paying tithe, rates and taxes, &c., and the expenses of management, was to be handed to the overseers in aid of the poor rate.
These provisions were amended by the Commons Act passed by Sir Richard Cross in 1876, which enacted (s. 26) that, if allotment-wardens found themselves unable to let the land under their management in gardens not exceeding a quarter of an acre, they might let them in gardens not exceeding an acre. Another important alteration was the making it obligatory on the allotment-wardens to offer the gardens at a fair agricultural rent, if from time to time sufficient to satisfy all rates, taxes, tithe, tithe rent-charge, and the rent-charge which might be charged under s. 75 of the Act of 1845; und by empowering them if unable to let to the poor inhabitants, to let to any person at the best annual rent obtainable. The next section of the same Act provided that the surplus rents of allotments should not go in aid of the poor rate, but towards improvement of the allotments or in the acquisition of additional land for the purpose of field gardens; and enabled the allotment-wardens (with the consent of the Commissioners) to sell any part of the land vested in them, and to purchase other suitable land to be held on the same trusts. This Act also repealed the power which existed under the Act of 1845, of creating rent-charges on the allotments.
1876. 19 à 40 Vim. c. $6.
Of the two Acts above mentioned as relating specially to allotments, the 111. R rst was passed in 1873, and is termed "The Poor Allotments Management A
Allotment
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