My life : a record of events and opinions - Wallace-online.org

RADNORSHIRE 79Montgomeryshire, both more than twelve miles distant.This was a very large parish, being fifteen miles long,but I think we could only have corrected the old mapor we should have been longer there than we reallywere.Here, also, we had a young gentleman with usfor a month or two to practise surveying. He was, Ithink, a Welshman, and a pleasant and tolerablyrespectable young man, but he had one dreadfulhabit—excessive smoking. I have never met aperson so much a slave to the habit, and even if Ihad had any inclination to try it again after my firstfailure, his example would have cured me.He prided himself on being a kind of championsmoker, and assured us that he had once, for a wager,smoked a good-sized china teapot full of tobaccothrough the spout.When we had finished at Llanbister, we wentabout ten miles south to a piece of work that wasnew to me—the making of a survey and plans for theinclosure of common lands. This was at LlandrindodWells, where there was then a large extent of moorand mountain surrounded by scattered cottages withtheir gardens and small fields, which, with their rightsof common, enabled the occupants to keep a horse,cow, or a few sheep, and thus make a living. All thiswas now to be taken away from them, and the wholeof this open land divided among the landowners ofthe parish or manor in proportion to the size or valueof their estates. To those that had much, much wasto be given, while from the poor their rights weretaken away ; for though nominally those that owneda little land had some compensation, it was so smallas to be of no use to them in comparison withthe grazing rights they before possessed.In the caseof all cottagers who were tenants or leaseholders, it