tainment, and liable to the fewest possible changes. The constant policy of our Courts of Justice has been, to make settlements easily obtained. Since the period we have before alluded to, this has certainly been a very mistaken policy. It would be a far wiser course to abolish all other means of settlement than those of Birth, Parentage, and Marriage-not for the limited reason stated in the Committee, that it would diminish the law expenses, (though that, too, is of importance), but because it would invest fewer residents with the fatal privilege of turning beggars, exempt a greater number of labourers from the moral corruption of the Poor-Laws, and stimulate them to exertion and economy, by the fear of removal if they are extravagant and idle. Of ten men who leave the place of their birth, four, probably, get a settlement by yearly hiring, and four others by renting a small tenement; while two or three may return to the place of their nativity, and settle there. Now, under the present system, here are eight men settled where they have a right to beg without being removed. The probabili ty is that they will all beg; and that their virtue will give way to the incessant temptation of the Poor-Laws: But if these men had felt from the very beginning, that removal from the place where they wished most to live, would be the sure consequence of their idleness and extravagance, the probability is that they would have escaped the contagion of pauperism, and been much more useful members of society than they now are. The best labourers in a village are commonly those who are living where they are not legally settled, and have no right to ask charityfor the plain reason, that they have nothing to depend upon but their own exertions: In short, for them the Poor-Laws hardly exist; and they are such as the great mass of English peasantry would be, if we had escaped the curse of these laws altogether.

It is incorrect to say, that no labourer would settle out of the place of his birth, if the means of acquiring a settlement were so limited. Many men begin the world with strong hope and much confidence in their own fortune, and without any intention of subsisting by charity; but they see others subsisting in greater ease, without their toil-and their spirit gradually sinks to the meanness of mendicity.

An affecting picture is sometimes drawn of a man falling into want in the decline of life, and compelled to remove from the place where he has spent the greatest part of his days. These things are certainly painful enough to him who has the misfortune to witness them. But they must be taken upon a G

VOL. XXXIII. No. 65.

large scale; and the whole good and evil which they produce diligently weighed and considered. The question then will be, whether any thing can be more really humane, than to restrain a system which relaxes the sinews of industry, and places the dependence of laborious men upon any thing but themselves. We must not think only of the wretched sufferer who is removed, and, at the sight of his misfortunes, call out for fresh facilities to beg. We must remember the industry, the vigour, and the care which the dread of removal has excited, and the number of persons who owe their happiness and their wealth to that salutary feeling. The very person who, in the decline of life, is removed from the spot where he has spent so great a part of his time, would perhaps have been a pauper half a century before, if he had been afflicted with the right of asking alms in the place where he lived.

It has been objected, that this plan of abolishing all settlements but those of birth, would send a man, the labour of whose youth had benefited some other parish, to pass the useless part of his life in a place for which he existed only as a burden: Supposing that this were the case, it would be quite sufficient to answer, that any given parish would probably send away as many useless old men as it received; and, after all, little inequalities must be borne for the general good. But, in truth, it is rather ridiculous to talk of a parish not having benefited by the labour of the man who is returned upon their hands in his old age. If such parish resembles most of those in England, the absence of a man for 30 or 40 years has been a great good instead of an evil; they have had many more labourers than they could employ; and the very man whom they are complaining of supporting for his few last years, would, in all probability, have been a beggar 40 years before, if he had remained among them; or, by pushing him out of work, would have made some other man a beggar. Are the benefits derived from prosperous manufactures, limited to the parishes which contain them? The industry of Halifax, Huddersfield, or Leeds, is felt across the kingdom as far as the Eastern Sea. The prices of meat and corn at the markets of York and Malton, are instantly affected by any increase of demand and rise of wages in the manufacturing districts to the west. They have benefited these distant places, and found labour for their superfluous hands by the prosperity of their manufactures. Where then would be the injustice, if the manufacturers, in the time of stagnation and poverty, were returned to their birth settlements? But as the law now stands, population tumors, of the most dangerous nature, may spring up in any parisha manufacturer, con

cealing his intention, may settle there, take 200 or 300 apprentices, fail, and half ruin the parish which has been the scene of his operations. For these reasons, we strongly recommend to Mr Bourne to narrow as much as possible, in all his future. bills, the means of acquiring settlements, and to reduce them ultimately to parentage, birth and marriage,-convinced that, by so doing, he will, in furtherance of the great object of abolishing the Poor-Laws, be only limiting the right of begging, and preventing the Resident and Almsman from being (as they now commonly are) one and the same person. But, before we dismiss this part of the subject, we must say a few words upon the methods by which settlements are now gained.

In the settlement by Hiring, it is held, that a man has a claim upon the parish for support where he has laboured for a year; and yet another, who has laboured there for 20 years by short hirings, gains no settlement at all. When a man was not allowed to live where he was not settled, it was wise to lay hold of any plan for extending settlements. But the whole question is now completely changed; and the only point which remains, is, to find out what mode of conferring settlements produces the least possible mischief. We are convinced it is by throwing every possible difficulty in the way of acquiring them. If a settlement hereafter should not be obtained in that parish in which labourers have worked for many years, it will be because it contributes materially to their happiness that they should not gain a settlement there; and this is a full answer to the apparent injustice.

Then, upon what plea of common sense should a man gain a power of taxing a parish to keep him, because he has Rented a tenement of ten pounds a year there? or, because he has served the office of clerk, or sexton, or hog-ringer, or bought an estate of thirty pounds value? However good these various pleas might be for conferring settlements, if it was desirable to increase the facility of obtaining them, they are totally inefficacious if it can be shown, that the means of gaining new settlements should be confined to the limits of the strictest necessity.

These observations (if they have the honour of attracting his attention) will show Mr Bourne our opinion of his bill, for giving the privilege of settlement only to a certain length of residence. In the first place, such a bill would be the cause of endless vexation to the poor, from the certainty of their being turned out of their cottages, before they pushed their legal taproot into the parish: and, secondly, it would rapidly extend all the evils of the Poor-Laws, by identifying, much more than

they are at present identified, the resident and the settled man -the very opposite of the policy which ought to be pursued.

Let us suppose, then, that we have got rid of all the means of gaining a settlement, or right to become a beggar, except by birth, parentage, and marriage; for the wife, of course, must fall into the settlement of the husband; and the children, till emancipated, must be removed, if their parents are removed. This point gained, the task of regulating the law expenses of the Poor-Laws, would be nearly accomplished; for the most fertile causes of dispute would be removed. Every first settlement is an inexhaustible source of litigation and expense to the miserable rustics. Upon the simple fact, for example, of a farmer hiring a ploughman for a year, arise the following afflicting questions. Was it an expressed contract? Was it an implied contract? Was it an implied hiring of the ploughman, rebutted by circumstances? Was the ploughman's contract for a year's prospective service? Was it a customary hiring of the ploughman? Was it a retrospective hiring of the ploughman? Was it a conditional hiring? Was it a general hiring? Was it a special, or a special yearly hiring, or a special hiring with wages reserved weekly? Did the farmer make it a special conditional hiring with warning, or an exceptive hiring? Was the service of the ploughman actual or constructive? Was there any dispensation expressed or implied?—or was there a dissolution implied?-by new agreement?-or mutual consent?-or by Justices?-or by any other of the ten thousand means which the ingenuity of lawyers has created? Can any one be surprised, after this, to learn that the amount of appeals for removals, in the four Quarter Sessions ending Midsummer, 1817, were four thousand seven hundred? * Can any man doubt that it is necessary to reduce the Hydra to as few heads as possible? or can any other objection be stated to such reduction, than the number of attorneys, and provincial counsel, whom it will bring into the poor-house? -Mr Nicol says, that the greater number of modes of settlement do not increase litigation. He may just as well say, that the number of the streets in the Seven Dials, does not increase the difficulty of finding the way. The modes of settlement we leave, are by far the simplest, and the evidence is assisted by registers.

Under the head of Law Expenses, we are convinced a great deal may be done, by making some slight alteration in the law of Removals. At present, Removals are made without any warn

*Commons' Report, 1817.

ing to the parties to whom the pauper is removed; and the first intimation which the defendant parish receives of the projected increase of their population is, by the arrival of the father, mother, and eight or nine children at the overseer's door-where they are tumbled out, with the Justice's order about their necks, and left as a spectacle to the assembled and indignant parishion-ers. No sooner have the poor wretches become a little familiarized to their new parish, than the order is appealed against, and they are recarted with the same precipitate indecencyQuo fata trahunt, retrahuntque.

No removal should ever take place, without due notice to the parish to which the pauper is to be removed, nor till the time in which it may be appealed against is past by: Notice to be according to the distance-either by letter, or personally; and the decision should be made by the Justices at their petty sessions, with as much care and attention as if there were no appeal from their decision. An absurd notion prevails among Magistrates, that they need not take much trouble in the investigation of removals, because their errors may be corrected by a superior Court; whereas it is an object of great importance, by a fair and diligent investigation in the nearest and cheapest court, to convince the country people which party is right and which is wrong; and in this manner to prevent them from becoming the prey of Law Vermin. We are convinced that this subject of the removal of poor, is well worthy a short and separate bill. Mr Bourne thinks it would be very difficult to draw up such a bill. We are quite satisfied we could draw up one in ten minutes that would completely answer the end proposed, and cure the evil complained of.

We proceed to a number of small details, which are well worth the attention of the Legislature. Overseers' accounts should be given in Quarterly, and passed by the Justices, as they now are, annually. The office of Overseer should be triennial. The accounts, which have nothing to do with the Poor, such as the Constables' account, should be kept and passed separately from them; and the Vestry should have the power of ordering a certain portion of the superfluous poor upon the roads. But we beseech all speculators in Poor-Laws to remember, that the machinery they must work with, is of a very coarse description. An Overseer must always be a limited, uneducated person, but little interested in what he is about, and with much business of his own on his hands. The extensive interference of gentlemen with those matters, is quite visionary and impossible. If gentlemen were tide-waiters, the Customhouse would be better served; if gentlemen would become petty constables, the police would be