the interests of those who were called upon to give effect to its provisions, led them to conceive that those interests might be promoted by throwing a part of the expense of agricultural labour upon the poor-rate. The practice cheats and defrauds the authors and the followers of it. Where spirit and activity are denied their reward, and all are reduced to a situation of dependance, not upon their own character and exertions, but upon parish relief for their support, and where industry and alertness are thus brought down to the level of idleness and slowness, the best labourer becomes no better than the worst, and the worst becomes worse than he otherwise would be. Thus, for that which the labour of one man would otherwise be equal to, the labour of two or even three men comes to be required; and thus the employer who supposes he is paying (say) only eighteenpence aday for labour, is, in truth, paying at the rate of three shillings or even four shillings and sixpence per day. But, under a mistaken impression of other (though really working such) results, the able-bodied poor were set to work by being hired to labour at wages under the rate paid to able-bodied labourers, and an allowance was assigned to them out of the rate, by way of

compensation for the difference.

Hence the notion has become matter of practice in many parishes, that, if a man cannot find work, or be set to work, so as to maintain himself and his family, he is entitled to be maintained out of the poor-rate, whereby persons employing labourers, are enabled to throw a portion of their wages upon the rate; and hence the mischiefs of this Act of Parliament have multiplied to such an extent that every tenth individual in the state is now a pauper receiving an allowance from the poor-rate*. That the gradually increasing number of paupers springs from this operation of the law, is obvious from the fact, that the proportion in the agricultural counties is found to be equal to that in the manufacturing countiest. Attempts have been made of late years to diminish the amount of the sums levied and expended upon the poor, and, to a certain extent, they have succeeded. Every thing in this country unfortunately is too much estimated according to its amount in money. These reductions are, in truth, of little value, unless they are a consequence of diminishing the numbers of paupers.

See Population Returns 1811 and 1821, contrasted with Report on Poor Rate Returns 1818.

+ Report on Poor Laws, 1817, p. 8.

F

It is very proper to have returns made every year of the sums expended on the poor. But it would be of much more importance to have returns of the numbers and descriptions of persons receiving parish relief, which of late years have not been furnished. The returns should also specify the amount of wages paid to such persons by their employers, and the amount of the sums received by them out of the rate.

While such have been the results of the errors fallen into with regard to the able-bodied poor, mistakes in their effects not much less fatal have been committed in the case of the impotent poor, with respect to whom the statute of Elizabeth directed as follows:

"And to the intent that necessary places of habitation may more conveniently be provided for such poor impotent people, be it enacted, that it shall and may be lawful for the churchwardens and overseers, &c. to erect, build, and set up, in fit and convenient places of habitation, in such (some) waste or common, &c. convenient houses of dwelling for the said impotent poor; and also to place inmates or more families than one in one cottage or house, one Act made in the one-and-thirtieth year of her Majesty's reign, intituled, An Act against the

erecting or maintaining of cottages, or any thing therein contained to the contrary notwithstanding.' Which cottages and places for inmates shall not at any time be used or employed to or for any other habitation, but only for impotent and poor of the same parish, that shall be there placed from time to time by the churchwardens and overseers of the poor of the same parish, or the most part of them, upon the pains and forfeitures contained in the said former Act made in the said one-and-thirtieth year of her Majesty's reign."

The statute here referred to provided that not more than one family should be placed in any of the cottages which it allowed to be erected; and what these cottages were, appears from those which were prohibited, namely, that none should be erected unless there should be assigned "to the same cottage or building four acres of ground at the least, to be continually occupied and manured therewith, so long as the same cottage shall be inhabited."

The dwellings thus intended for the impotent poor were cottages in wastes or commons. The legislators of Queen Elizabeth's time did not contemplate, nor did there perhaps then exist such destitution in cities and towns as to require

the establishment of receptacles by law even for the impotent poor. But, like the aberration from a straight line, which increases in proportion to its distance from the point of separation, the errors of the mode of executing the provisions of this Act of Parliament multiplying in their progress, the cities of London and Westminster were empowered to provide workhouses, upon a recital, that "the necessity, number, and continual increase of the poor, not only within the cities of London and Westminster, but also through the whole kingdom of England and dominion of Wales, is very great and exceeding burthensome, being occasioned by reason of some defects in the law concerning the settling of the poor, and for want of a due provision of the regulations of relief and employment in such parishes or places where they are legally settled, which doth inforce many to turn incorrigible rogues, and others to perish for want, together with the neglect of the faithful execution of such laws and statutes as have formerly been made for the apprehending of

rogues and bonds, and for the good of the poor.

*

vaga

In order to cure such evils, this statute increased them by giving additional powers to

* 13 and 14 Car. II. c. 12.