settlement. The law of settlement established by 14 Charles II. Law of cap. 12,1 together with certain additions made thereto by subsequent Acts, prescribing the conditions on which a right of settlement was to be acquired, remained in force. The first of these Acts is 3 William and Mary, cap. 11, conferring a right of settlement on persons serving an office or paying taxes in a parish. The others are 54 & 59 George III. caps. 170 and 50; 6 George IV. cap. 57; and 1 William IV. cap. 18, in which the several branches of settlement, by birth, hiring and service, apprenticeship, and owning or renting a tenement, are defined. But by far the most important addition to the settlement law was 35 George III. cap. 101,2 entitled "An Act to prevent the removal of Poor Persons until they shall become actually chargeable." This statute, although it does not put an end to the fraud and litigation which are the natural consequences of the settlement law, nor very materially lessen the expense attending it, yet prevented the infliction of much hardship by prohibiting the removal of persons under the apprehension of their eventually becoming chargeable. The other evils of settlement still remained, alike depressing the labourer and injuring the employer; but the one from long usage had gotten to consider his settlement a privilege, and the other had become callous or blinded to its real effects. vestries. Parish vestries, and the ordering of parochial affairs Parish generally, continued to be conducted under the provisions of 17 George II. cap. 38,3 until the passing of the Parish Vestries Act, in 1818, and the Act for constituting select vestries passed the year following," after which there was no change in the law until 1831, when the option of adopting a more popularly constituted 1 Ante, vol. i. p. 279. 3 Ante, p. 32. 559 George III. cap. 12, p. 193. 2 Ante, p. 112. 4 * 58 George III. cap. 69, p. 192. Apprenticeship. Bastardy. executive than was attainable under the provisions of The numerous Acts regulating apprenticeship, extend from 43 Elizabeth downwards. The principal of them are 2 & 3 Anne, cap. 6,1 prescribing the manner in which boys are to be apprenticed to the seaservice; 18 George III. cap. 47,2 reducing the period of apprenticeship from the age of twenty-four to that of twenty-one; 32 & 33 George III. caps. 54 and 55,3 giving authority to magistrates in regard to binding out, etc.; 42 George III. cap. 46, requiring the parish officers to keep registers of all apprentices bound out by them; 56 George III. cap. 139,* and 4 George IV. caps. 29 and 34,5 by which apprentices are placed under the special charge of the justices, both as regards their binding out and subsequent treatment. The laws which apply to bastardy, like those regulating apprenticeship, extend downwards from the time of Elizabeth. By 6 George II. cap. 31, any person charged with being the father of a bastard child may be immediately apprehended. The 49 George III. cap. 68,1 provides for indemnifying parishes against the charge of bastardy; and 50 George III. cap. 51,2 repeals the provision of 7 James I. cap. 4,3 for the punishment of any woman who has a bastard child. All these successive Acts bear evidence of a continually increasing amount of humane and kindly feeling in the public and the legislature, and this is especially observable in the Acts which apply to apprentices, for whose protection and well-doing all possible care seems to have been taken. The same Pauper may be said with respect to pauper lunatics, whose helplessness differs little from that of childhood, except in its being in the majority of cases permanent and irremediable, and for their protection we have just seen that provision is humanely made by 9 George IV. cap. 40.4 lunatics. Act. In enumerating the statutes by which the adminis- Vagrant tration of relief to the poor was regulated, we must not omit the new Vagrant Act, 5 George IV. cap. 83;5 for although vagrancy and pauperism are no longer blended, as in the early statutes, the distinction between them is not always readily perceptible; and in a law for repressing the first, provision must be made for cases in which the two may become mingled, if not identical. This is done in the above Act, founded in the main on 17 George II. cap. 5,6 and 32 George III. cap. 45,' but modified and adapted to existing circumstances-that is, to the enormous increase of wealth and population which had taken place in the interim, and to the habits and intelligence of the time, which would not tolerate the harshness and severity of the older statutes. Commis inquire into the opera The foregoing summary of the enactments connected with the relief of the poor, and brief notice of their general tendency and results, will, it is hoped, be a fitting preparation for entering on a consideration of the proceedings which took place for investigating the subject, immediately after the announcement by Lord Althorp, of its being the intention of government to institute such an inquiry.1 The Commissioners appointed for this purpose in pointed to February 1832 were directed "to make a diligent and full inquiry into the practical operation of the laws for tion of the the relief of the poor in England and Wales, and into and report the manner in which those laws are administered; and Feb. 1832. to report whether any and what alterations, amend Poor Laws, thereon, ments, or improvements may be beneficially made in the said laws, or in the manner of administering them, and how the same may be best carried into effect." They were empowered to appoint Assistant Commissioners to visit the several districts, both urban and rural, and report the practices which they found to prevail, so that the different modes in which relief was administered in different parts of the country, and the effects produced in each case might become known, and serve as guides in framing any measure which the Commissioners might deem it expedient to recommend. The assistants were selected, and instructed in the nature of the duties required from them without delay, and a set of queries was likewise extensively circulated, the returns to which afforded much valuable information. But the subject to be inquired into was so large. and complicated that much time was unavoidably occupied in preparation, and in what may be called preliminary matters, producing no immediate result. of extracts On the 19th of March, however, in the following year, by the Com- the Commissioners, in compliance with a request to that missioners. effect, presented to government a volume of extracts, 1833. A volume published 1 See ante, p. 214. containing generally the substance of the information they had up to that time received, and which, although comprising only a small portion of the evidence in their possession, contained, they say, "more information on the subject to which it relates than had ever yet been afforded to the country." The Commissioners further remark, that "the most important, and certainly the most painful, parts of its contents are the proof that the maladministration, which was supposed to be principally confined to some of the agricultural districts, appears to have spread over almost every part of the country, and into the manufacturing towns; the proof that actual intimidation, directed against those who are, or are supposed to be, unfavourable to profuse relief, is one of the most extensive sources of maladministration; and the proof that the evil, though checked in some places by extraordinary energy and talent, is on the whole steadily and rapidly progressive." The Com Report. This volume of extracts was distributed throughout the country, and produced a very decided effect on public opinion, the information it contained being admirably selected for the purpose. It was followed 1884. on the 20th of February 1834 by the full and very missioners' elaborate report of the Commissioners, with an abridged supplement appended, and also accompanied by an appendix, of which the Commissioners remark, "The evidence contained in our appendix comes from every county, and almost every town, and from a very large proportion of even the villages, in England. It is derived from many thousand witnesses of every rank, and of every profession and employment-members of the two houses of parliament, clergymen, country gentlemen, magistrates, farmers, manufacturers, shopkeepers, artisans, and peasants, differing in every conceivable degree in education, habits, and interests, and agreeing only in their practical experience as to the matters in question, in their general description both of VOL. II.-15 |