Steals the common from the goose?

[Daniel P. B. Smith]

In another venue, I had wanted to quote what I thought was an anonymous
rhyme, which in my muddle-headed way I thought dated from "the"
Enclosure Act in England in, I had thought, the 1700's, to the effect
that

The law locks up the man or woman
Who steals the goose from off the common;
But leaves the greater villain loose
Who steals the common from the goose.

On checking, I find that the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations has:

"The fault is great in man or woman
Who steals a goose from off a common:
But what can plead that man's excuse
Who steals a common from a goose?"

--The Tickler Magazine, 1 Feb. 1821.

Some goose-oriented (geese-oriented?) Web sites give the wording as

The law locks up both man and woman
  Who steals the goose from off the common
  But lets the greater felon loose
  Who steals the common from the goose

and attribute it to "Edward Potts Cheney" without giving his dates or
further identifying him. (A stray mention
athttp://www.history.upenn.edu/faculty/ mentions him as having been on
the U. Penn history faculty in 1893...)

Anyone happen to know the straight dope?

And want to fill me in the basics of "the" Enclosure or Inclosure Act
(Strictly local? passed at various times in various centuries in various
centuries? with a lot of them being passed in the first half of the
1800's?)

--
Daniel P. B. Smith
Email address: dpbs...@world.std.com
"Lifetime forwarding" address: dpbs...@alum.mit.edu

[Graham Weeks]

In article <dpbsmith-B90F34...@news.cis.dfn.de>, "Daniel P. B.
Smith" <dpbs...@bellatlantic.net> wrote:

> In another venue, I had wanted to quote what I thought was an anonymous
> rhyme, which in my muddle-headed way I thought dated from "the"
> Enclosure Act in England in, I had thought, the 1700's, to the effect
> that
>
> The law locks up the man or woman
> Who steals the goose from off the common;
> But leaves the greater villain loose
> Who steals the common from the goose.
>

snip

>
> Anyone happen to know the straight dope?

Penguin Dictionary of Quotations has a variant ascribed to anonymous on
enclosures, 18th C.

>
> And want to fill me in the basics of "the" Enclosure or Inclosure Act
> (Strictly local? passed at various times in various centuries in various
> centuries? with a lot of them being passed in the first half of the
> 1800's?)
>

In Britain the appropriation of common land as private property and the
changing of open field systems to enclosed fields, often for sheep, began
in the 14th C, becoming widespread in the 15th and 16th Cs. The first
Enclosure Act was in 1603 . Between 1760 and 1820 enclosures by Acts of
Parliament reduced many yeoman land owning farmers to agricultural
laborers of forced them to leave the land. The Acts were applied to 4.5
million acres, a quarter of England. From 1876 the law limited the
enclosure of common land.

--
Graham J Weeks
http://www.weeks-g.dircon.co.uk/ My homepage of quotations
http://www.grace.org.uk/churches/ealing.html Our church
http://www.onelist.com/subscribe.cgi/Christiansquoting Daily quotes
-------------------------------------------------------
One of the greatest delusions in the world is the hope that the evils in this world are to be cured by legislation. --Thomas Brackett Reed
-------------------------------------------------------

[William C Waterhouse]

In article <dpbsmith-B90F34...@news.cis.dfn.de>,
"Daniel P. B. Smith" <dpbs...@bellatlantic.net> writes:
...

> On checking, I find that the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations has:
>
> "The fault is great in man or woman
> Who steals a goose from off a common:
> But what can plead that man's excuse
> Who steals a common from a goose?"
>
> --The Tickler Magazine, 1 Feb. 1821.
>
> Some goose-oriented (geese-oriented?) Web sites give the wording as
>
> The law locks up both man and woman
>   Who steals the goose from off the common
>   But lets the greater felon loose
>   Who steals the common from the goose
>
> and attribute it to "Edward Potts Cheney" without giving his dates or
> further identifying him.

...

Edward Potts Cheyney (so spelled) was, as noted in one of the
omitted bits, a professor of history; he lived from 1861 to 1947.
The problem is probably that people didn't read Bartlett's
carefully enough (or maybe an earlier edition was confused
itself). Anyway, the 13th edition says explicitly that the
verse (in this form) was _quoted_ By Cheyney in his book
_An Introduction to the Industrial and Social History of
England_ (1901).

William C. Waterhouse
Penn State