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lieries , selected on account of their sober and industrious habits , but without regard to their pecuniary means . To those who had nothing to lose , the pro - posal of a grant of land for a house and garden at a small ground-rent for their own and children ' s lives , and the offer of the necessary assistance to build a
dwelling in any way superior id accommodation and comfort to any they had been used to , it was to be expected would hare met with ready acceptance ; yet so completely had despair taken possession of their minds , that it was not without difficulty two or three out of the whole number applied to could be prevailed upon to engage in ( to them ) so
safe a speculation , the only conditions of which , on their parts , were to contribute the labour of over hours and holidays in whatever form it could be rendered most available , and that the money advanced should be considered lent , not given , and be repaid with interest , by moderate yearly instalments . It was endeavoured , also , strongly to impress upon their
minds that whatever aid was afforded them , was an offering of good-will , meant to enable them to help themselves , but not as charity . Excellent building stone was to be had on the same property near at hand for the labour of raising , and for the first three years , whilst the nearest
adjoining woods of the proprietor were in course of cutting , timber for the roofs was given . The first of these advantages is continued to this day , the latter has ceased of necessity , and is no longer required . Independently of the considerations already stated , others of a more local nature contributed to render the
experiment desirable . From the increase of population which had taken place in consequence of the extensive collieries established within the last twenty years , and the near neighbourhood of several large iron-works , workmen's houses became so greatly in demand , that two or three families were in some instances ^
crammed into the same tenement , and in a majority of cases the whole of one family slept in the same room , without regard to age , number , or sex . The removal of so great and crying an evil became of course an object of solicitude . The mass of the new population also , derived for the most part from distant colliery districts , was of a very unsettled sort ; many who came from a distance left their own homes to seek for new
ones from bo very creditable motive , and here they were considered as mere birds of passage . To render the population , therefore , in any great f degree station *
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ary , by affording more and better accommodation , was a matter of considerable moment both to the masters and the workmen , and , like tfre last mentioned , furnished an additional motive for entering upon the experiment . It was not till the second year after the three first houses had been inhabited that
the advantages resulting from the specu * lation became sufficiently apparent to induce others to adventure . It was then , after a great deal had been said in derision of the scheme , and opposition and discouragements conquered , that it began to be evident to the understandings of the labourers , that no poor man
could put into so good a benefit club . To each house was allotted one ^ eighth of an acre for a garden ; the house was , by agreement , to contain space enough to admit of one room being appropriated to the sole use of lodgers . The ground-rent and interest of the money advanced iu no case exceeded 50 * . ; this was the greatest
amount of annual charge , whilst , according to the current rate of payment for lodgings , two lodgers paid 3 * . a week , or 71 . 16 a . a year , so that the owner , after paying his ground-rent and interest , had 5 / . a year at command to pay in discharge of his debt ; and had a substantial stone-built and stone-tiled
house , with an oven in Ins chimney corner , and twenty perches of garden ground , on terms giving him a permanent interest therein , and constituting him a freeholder , for nothing . Such were the earliest beginnings of Blackwood Village , the details of the progress and preseut state of which I must defer for your next number . JOHN H . MOGGBIDGE ,
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Mr . Stevens Reviewed . ( i Thou com ' st in such a questionable shape That 1 will speak to thee . I'll cull thvtJ Ham . "
To the Editor . Sir , I have not the honour of being acquainted either with Mr . Stevens or with many of the members and proceedings of that denomination in which your periodical circulates . I am , therefore , not
prepared to deny the competency of JVlr . Stevens to teach the classics or any other branch of learning . Judging from the only criterion that I possess ( tpae divitj , 1 am bound to believe him eminently qualified for the " delightful task . " In what follows , then , I wish to coroweut , not on the capacity or incapacity of in-
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58 Miscellaneous Correspondence ,
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1829, page 58, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2568/page/58/
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