s'excuse d'avoir, alarmé Madame d'Houdetot sur la sienne. I d'Epinay, Dr. Tronchin, of Geneva, was in vogue, and Que sais-je encore? Je ne suis point content de ses résponses; je n'ai pas eu le courage de le lui témigner j'ai mieux aimé lui laisser la miserable consolation de croire qu'il m'a trompé. Qu'il vive! Il a mis dans sa défense un importement, froid qui m'a affligé. J'ai peur qu'il ne soit endurci. Adieu, mon ami; soyons et continuons d'être honnê. tes gens: l'état de ceux qui ont cessé de l'être me fait peur. Adieu, mon ami; je vous embrasse bien tendrement. Je ne jette dans vos bras comme un homme effrayé ; je tâche en vain de faire de la poésie, mais cet homme me revient tout à travers mon travail; il me trouble, et je suis comme si j'avois à côte de moi un damné ; il est damné, cela est sûr. Adieu mon ami. . . . . Grimm, voilà l'effet que je ferois sur vous, si je devenois jamais un méchant : en vérité, j'aimerois mieux étre mort. Il n'y a peut-etre pas le sens commun dans tout ce que je vous écris, mais je Vous avoue que je n'ai jamois éprouvé un trouble d'ame si terrible que celu que j'ai. Dur him, or seeing him in person. To the Esculapius of 'Eh bien! mon ami, je n'aimerois pas à vivre de suite avec lui; il n'a nul principe arrété, il compte trop sur sa mémoire, et il en abuse souvent; je trouve qu'elle fait trot quelquefois à sa conversation; il redit plus qu'il ne dit, et ne laisse jamais rien à faire aux autres. Il ne sait point causer, et il humilie h! mon ami, quel spectacle que celui d'un homme l'amour-propre; il dit le pour et le contre, tant qu'on veut, méchant et bourrelé! Brûlez, déchirez ce papier, qu'il ne toujours avec de nouvelles graces à la vérité, et néanmoins il retombe plus sous vos yeux; que je ne revoie plus cet hom-a toujours l'air de se moquer de tout, jusqu'à lui-même. Il n'a me là, il me feroit croire aux diables et à l'enfer. Si je nulle philosophie dans la tête; il est tout hérissé de petits suis jamais forcé de retourner chez lui, je suis sûr que je préjués d'enfans; on les lui passeroit peut-être en faveur de ses frémirai tout le long du chemin : j'avois la fiévre en reve- graces, du brillant de son esprit et de son originalité, s'il ne nant. Je suis fâche de ne lui avoir pas laissé voir l'horreur s'affichoit pas pour les secouer tous. Il a des inconséquences qu'il m'inspiroit, et je ne me réconcilie avec moi qu'en plaisantes, et il est au milieu de tout cela très-amusant à voir. pensant, que vous, avec toute votre fermeté, vous ne l'au- Mais je n'aime point les gens qui ne font que m'amuser. Pour riez pas pu à ma place; je ne sais pas pas s'il ne m'auroit madame sa nièce, elle est tout-à-fait comique. pas mé. On entendoit ses cris jusqu'au bout du jardin ; et I paroit ici depuis quelques jours un livre qui a vivement je le voyois! Adieu, mon ami, j'irai demain vous voir; échauffe les têtes, et qui cause des discussions fort intéressanj'irai chercher un homme de bien, auprès duquel je m'as- tes entre différentes personnes de ce pays, parce que l'on préséye, qui me rassure, et qui chasse de mon ame je ne sais tend que la constitution de leur gouvernment y est intéressée : quoi d'infernal qui la tourmente et qui s'y est attaché. Les Voltaire s'y trouve mêlé pour des propos assez vifs qu'il a tenu poetes on bien fait de mettre un intervalle immense entre à ce sujet contre les prêtres. La grosse nièce trouve fort le ciel et les enfer. En vérité, la main me tremble.'-III. mauvais que tous les magistrats n'ayent pas pris fait et cause pp. 148, 149. pour son oncle. Elle jette tour à tour ses grosses mains et ses petits bras par dessus sa tête, maudissant avec des cris inhuinains les lois, les républiques, et surtout ces polissons de républicans qui vont à pied, qui sont obligés de souffrir les criailleries de leurs prêtres, et qui se croient libres. Cela est toutà-fait bon à entendre et à voir.'-III. pp. 196, 197. Madame d'Epinay lived, as we before observed, with many persons of great celebrity. We could not help smiling, among many others, at this anecdote of our countryman, David Hume. At the beginning of his splendid career of fame and fashion at Paris, the historian was persuaded to appear in the character of a sultan; and was placed on a sofa between two of the most beautiful women of Paris, who acted for that evening the part of inexorables, whose favour he was supposed to be soliciting. The absurdity of this scene can easily be conceived. vous voilà ici ? considerable talent. Rousseau accuses her of writing Le célèbre David Hume, grand et gros historiographe d'Angleterre, connu et estimé par ses écrits, n'a pas autant de talens pour ce genre d'amusemens auquel toures nos 'Je lui crois soixante ans; il ne les paroit pourtant pas. Il jolies femmes l'avoient décidé propre. Il fit son debut, est d'une taille mediocre, sa figure a dû être très-agréable: chez Madame de T* *; on lui avoit destiné le rôle d'un elle se distingué encore par un air de noblesse et d'aisance, qui sultan assis entre deux esclaves, employant toute son élo- répand de la grace sur tout sa personne. Sa physionomie a quence pour s'en faire aimer; les trouvant inexorables, il de la finesse. Ses gestes, ses attitudes ne sont jamais recherdevoit chercher le sujet de leurs peines et de leur réssist-chés; mais ils sont si bien d'accord avec la tournue de son esance: on le place sur un sopha entre les deux plus jolies prit, qu'ils semblent ajouter à son originalité. Il parle des femme de Paris, il les regarde attentivement, il se frappe choses les plus sérieuses et les plus importantes d'un ton si gai, le ventre et les genoux à plusieurs reprises, et ne trouve qu'on est souvent tenté de ne rien croire de ce qu'il dit. On jamais autre chose à leur dire que: Eh bien! mes demoi-'a presque jamais rien a citer de ce qu'on lui entend dire; selles. Eh bien! vous voilà donc. Eh bien! mais lorsqu'il parle, on ne veut rien perdre de ce qu'il dit; s'il vous voilà. Cette phrase se tait, on désire qu'l parle encore. Sa prodigieuse vivacité, dura un quart d'heure, sans qu'il pût en sortir. Une d'elles et une singulière aptitude à toutes sortes de talens et de conse leva d'impatience: Ah! dit-elle, je m'en étois bien dou-noissances, l'ont porté à tout voir et à tout connoitre; au motée, cet homme n'est bon qu'à manger du veau! Depuis ce yen de quoi vous comprenez qu'il est fort instruit. Il a bien temps il est relégué au rôle de spectateur, et n'en est pas lu, bien vu, et n'a retenu que ce qui valoit la peine de l'être. moins fêté et cajolé. C'est en vérité une chose plaisante Son esprit annonce d'abord plus d'agrément que de solidité, que le rôle qu'il joue ici; malheureusement pour lui, ou mais je crois que quiconque le jugeroit frivole lui feroit trot. plutôt pour la dignité philosophique, car, pour lui, il paroit Je le soupçonne de renfermer dans son cabinet les épines des s'accommoder fort de ce train de vie; il n'y avoit aucune roses qu'il distribue dans la société assez constamment gai manie dominante dans ce pays lorsqu'il y est arrivé; on l'a dans le monde, seul je le crois mélancolique. On dit qu'il a regardé comme une trouvaille dans cette circonstance, et l'ame aussi tendre qu'honnête; qu'il sent vivement et qu'il se l'effervesence de nos jeunes têtes s'est tournée de son côte. livre avec impetuosité à ce qui trouvre le chemin de son cœur. Toutes les jolies femmes s'en sont emparées; il est de tous Tout le monde ne lui plait pas; il faut pour cela de l'originalles soupers fins, et il n'est point de bonne fête sans lui: enité, ou des vertus distinguées, ou de certains vices qu'il appelle un mot, il est pour nos agréables ce que les Genevois sont pour moi.'-III. pp. 284, 285. passions; néanmoins dans le courant de la vie, il s'accommode de tout. Beaucoup de curiosité et de la facilité dans le caractère (ce qui va jusqu'à la foiblesse) l'entrainent souvent à négliger ses meilleurs amis et à less perdre de vue, pour se mais on voit si clairement qu'il en rougit avec lui-même, qu'on livrer à des goûts factices et passagers: il en rit avec eux; ne peut lui savoir mauvais gré de ses disparates.'—III. pp. 324 There is always some man, of whom the human viscera stand in greater dread than of any other person, who is supposed, for the time being, to be the only person who can dart his pill into their inmost re--326. cesses, and bind them over, in medical recognizance, to assimilate and digest. In the Trojan war, Podali- The portrait of Grimm, the French Boswell, vol. iii. rius and Machaon were what Dr. Baillie and Sir Henry p. 97, is equally good, if not superior; but we have alHalford now are-they had the fashionable practice of ready extracted enough to show the nature of the the Greek camp; and, in all probability, received ma- work, and the talents of the author. It is a lively, ny a guinea from Agamemnon dear to Jove, and Nes-entertaining book,-relating in an agreeable manner tor the tamer of horses. In the time of Madame the opinions and habits of many remarkable men 4. Considerations on the Poor-Laws. By John Davison, A.M. Oxford. OUR readers, we fear, will require some apology for being asked to look at anything upon the poor-laws. No subject, we admit, can be more disagreeable, or more trite. But, unfortunately, it is the most important subject which the distressed state of the country is now crowding upon our notice. the following passage, objections that are applicable to almost all the rest. The district school would no doubt be well superintended and well regulated, magistrates and country gentlemen would be its visitors. The more excellent the establishment, the greater the mischief; because the greater the expense. We may talk what we will of economy, but where the care of the poor is taken exclusively into the hands of the rich, comparative extravagance is the necessary consequence: to say that the gentleman, or even the overseer, would never permit the poor to live at the district school, as they live at home, is say. ing far too little. English humanity will never see the poor in any thing like want, when that want is palpably and visibly brought before it: first, it will give necessaries, next comforts; until its fostering care rather pampers, than merely relieves. The humanity itself is highly laudable; but if practised on an extensive scale, its consequences must entail an almost unlimited expenditure. 'Mr. Locke computes that the labour of a child from 3 to 14, being set against its nourishment and teaching, the result would be exoneration of the parish from expense. Nothing could prove more decisively the incompetency of the board of trade to advise on this question. Of the productive labour of the workhouse, I shall have to speak hereafter; I will only observe in this place, that after the greatest care and attention bestowed on the subject, after expensive looms purchased, &c. the 50 boys of the blue coat school earned in the year 1816, 594 10s. 3d.; the 40 girls earned, in the same time, 401. Ts. 9d. The ages of these children are from 8 to 16. They earn about one pound in the year, and cost about twenty. The greater the call for labour in public institutions, be they prisons, workhouses, or schools, the more difficult to be procured that labour must be. There will thence be both much less of it for the comparative numbers, and it will afford a much less price; to get any labour at all, one school must un derbid another. It has just been observed, that "the child of a poor cottager, half clothed, half fed, with the enjoyment of home and liberty, is not only happier but better than the little automaton of a parish workhouse:" and this I believe is accurately true. I scarcely know a more cheering sight, though certainly many more elegant ones, than the youthful gambols of a village green. They call to mind the description given by Paley of the shoals of the fry of fish: "They are so happy that they know not what to do with themselves; their attitude, their vi vacity, their leaps out of the water, their frolics in it, all conduce to show their excess of spirits, and are simply the effects of that excess." Though politeness may be banished from the cottage, and though the anxious mother may sometimes chide a little too sharply, yet here both maternal endearments and social affection exist in perhaps their greatest vigour: the attachments of lower life, where independent of attachment there is so little to enjoy, far outstrip the divided if not exhausted sensibility of the rich and great; and in depriving the poor of these at tachments, we may be said to rob them of their little all. But it is not to happiness only I here refer: it is to morals listen with great reserve to that system of moral instruction, A pamphlet on the poor-laws generally contains some little piece of favourite nonsense, by which we are gravely told this enormous evil may be perfectly cured. The first gentleman recommends little gardens; the second cows; the third a village shop; the fourth a spade; the fifth Dr. Bell, and so forth. Eve. ry man rushes to the press with his small morsel of imbecility; and is not easy till he sees his impertinence stitched in blue covers. In this list of absurdities, we must not forget the project of supporting the poor from national funds, or, in other words, of immediately doubling the expenditure, and introducing every possible abuse into the administration of it. Then there are worthy men, who call upon gentlemen of fortune and education to become overseersmeaning, we suppose, that the present overseers are to perform the higher duties of men of fortune. Then merit is up as the test of relief; and their worships are to enter into a long examination of the life and character of each applicant, assisted, as they doubt. less would be, by candid overseers, and neighbours divested of every feeling of malice and partiality. The children are next to be taken from their parents, and lodged in immense pedagogueries of several acres each, where they are to be carefully secluded from those fathers and mothers they are commanded to obey and honour, and are to be brought up in virtue by the church wardens. And this is gravely intended as a corrective of the poor-laws; as if (to pass over which has not social affection for its basis, or the feelings of the many other objections which might be made to it,) the heart for its ally. It is not to be concealed, that every it would not set mankind populating faster than car- thing may be taught, yet nothing learned, that systems planpenters and bricklayers could cover in their children,ned with care, and executed with attention, may evaporate or separate twigs to be bound into rods for their flagellation. An extension of the poor-laws to personal 'Let us suppose the children of the "district school," nurproperty is also talked of We shall be very glad to tured with that superabundant care which such institutions, see any species of property exempted from these laws, when supposed to be well conducted, are wont to exhibit; but have no wish that any which is now exempted they rise with the dawn; after attending to the calls of cleanshould be subjected to their influence. The case liness, prayers follow; then a lesson; then breakfast; then would infallibly be like that of the income tax-the work, till noon liberates them, for perhaps an hour, from the more easily the tax was raised the more profligate walls of their prison to the walls of their prison court. Dinner follows; and then, in course, work, lessons, supper, would be the expenditure. It is proposed also that prayers; at length, after a day dreary and dull, the counteralehouses should be diminished, and that the children part of every day which has preceded, and of all that are to of the poor should be catechized publicly in the church, follow, the children are dismissed to bed. This system may both very respectable and proper suggestions, but of construct a machine, but it will not form a man. Of what does themselves hardly strong enough for the evil. We it consist of prayers parroted without one sentiment in aehave every wish that the poor should accustom them- cord with the words uttered: of moral lectures which the unselves to habits of sobriety; but we cannot help re-derstanding does not comprehend, or the heart feel; of endflecting, sometimes, that an alehouse is the only place jurious to the perfection of the human frame. The cottage less bodily constraint, intolerable to youthful vivacity, and inwhere a poor tired creature, haunted with every spe- day may not present so imposing a scene; no decent uniform cies of wretchedness, can purchase three or four times no well trimmed locks; no glossy skin; no united response of a year three pennyworth of ale-a liquor upon which hundreds of conjoined voices; no lengthened procession, miswine-drinking moralists are always extremely severe. named exercise; but if it has less to strike the eye, it has far We must not forget, among other nostrums, the eulogy more to engage the heart. A trifle in the way of cleanliness of small farms-in other words, of small capital, and must suffice; the prayer is not forgot; it is perhaps imperprofound ignorance in the arts of agriculture; and the fectly repeated, and confusedly understood; but it is not sauttered as a vain sonad; it is an earthly parent that tells of a evil is also thought to be curable by periodical con- heavenly one; duty, love, obedience, are not words without tributions from men who have nothing, and can earn ineaning, when repeated by a mother to a child: to God, the nothing without charity. To one of these plans, and great unknown Being that made all things, all thanks, all perhaps the most plausible, Mr. Nicol has stated in praise, all adoration is due. The young religionist may be sa into unmeaning forms, where the imagination is not roused, or the sensibility impressed. some measure bewildered by all this; his notions may be obscure, but his feelings will be roused, and the foundation at least of true piety will be laid. 'Of moral instruction, the child may be taught less at home thau at school, but he will be taught better; that is, whatever he is taught he will feel; he will not have abstract propositions of duty coldly presented to his mind; but precept and practice will be conjoined; what he is told it is right to do will be instantly done. Sometimes the operative principle on the child's mind will be love, sometimes fear, sometimes habitual sense of obedience; it is always something that will impress, always something that will be remembered. There are two points which we consider as now admitted by all men of sense-1st, That the poor-laws must be abolished; 2dly, That they must be very gradually abolished. We hardly think it worth while to throw away pen and ink upon any one who is still inclined to dispute either of these propositions. With respect to the gradual abolition, it must be observed, that the present redundant population of the country has been entirely produced by the poor-laws: and nothing could be so grossly unjust as to encourage people to such a vicious multiplication, and then, when you happen to discover your folly, immediately to starve them into annihilation. You have been calling upon your population for two hundred years to beget more children-furnished them with clothes, food, and houses-taught them to lay up nothing for matrimony, nothing for children, nothing for age--but to depend upon justices of the peace for every human want. The folly is now detected; but the people, who are the fruit of it, remain. It was madness to call them in this manner into existence; but it would be the height of cold-blooded cruelty to get rid of them by any other than the most gentle and gradual means; and not only would it be cruel, but extremely dangerous to make the attempt. Insurrections of the most sanguinary and ferocious nature would be the immediate consequence of any very sudden change in the system of the poor-laws; not partial, like those which proceeded from an impeded or decaying state of manufactures, but as universal as the poor-laws themselves, and as ferocious as insurrections always are which are led on by hunger and despair. gentleman of very Independent fortune), who has consented that he should be placed there. Mr. Sturges Bourne is undoubtedly a man of business, and of very good sense: he has made some mistakes; but, upon the whole, sees the subject as a philosopher and a statesman ought to do. Above all, we are pleased with his good nature and good sense in adhering to his undertaking, after the Parliament has flung out two or three or his favourite bills. Many men would have surrendered so unthankful and laborious an undertaking in disgust; but Mr. Bourne knows better what appertains to his honour and character, and above all what he owes to his country. It is a great subject; and such as will secure to him the gratitude and fa your of posterity, if he brings it to a successful issue. We have stated our opinion, that all remedies, without gradual abolition, are of little importance. With a foundation laid for gradual abolition, every auxiliary improvement of the poor-laws (while they do remain) is worthy the attention of Parliament; and in sugges ting a few alteratious as fit to be immediately adopted, we wish it to be understood, that we have in view the gradual destruction of the system, as well as its amendment while it continues to operate. It seems to us, then, that one of the first and greatest improvements of this unhappy system would be a complete revision of the law of settlement. Since Mr. East's act for preventing the removal of the poor till they are actually chargeable, any man may live where he pleases, till he becomes a beggar, and asks alms of the place where he resides. To gain a settlement, then, is nothing more than to gain a right of begging: it is not, as it used to be before Mr. East's act, a pow er of residing where, in the judgment of the resident, his industry and exertion will be best rewarded; but a power of taxing the industry and exertions of other persons in the place where his settlement falls. This privilege produces all the evil complained of in the poor-laws; and instead, therefore, of being conferred with the liberality and profusion which it is at present, it should be made of very difficult attainment, and lia ble to the fewest possible changes. The constant These observatione may serve as an answer to those policy of our courts of justice has been, to make setangry and impatient gentlemen, who are always cry-tlements easily obtained. Since the period we have ing out, What have the House of Commons done?- before alluded to, this has certainly been a very mista What have they to show for their labours? Are the ken policy. It would be a far wiser course to abolish rates lessened? Are the evils removed? The com- all other means of settlement than those of birth, pamittee of the House of Commons would have shown rentage, and marriage-not for the limited reason themselves to be a set of the most contemptible char- stated in the committee, that it would diminish the latans, if they had proceeded with any such indecent law expenses (though that, too, is of importance), but and perilous haste, or paid the slightest regard to the because it would invest fewer residents with the fatal ignorant folly which required it at their hands. They privilege of turning beggars, exempt a greater number have very properly begun, by collecting all possible of labourers from the moral corruption of the poor information upon the subject; by consulting specula- laws, and stimulate them to exertion and economy, by tive and practical men; by leaving time for the press the fear of removal if they are extravagant and idle. to contribute whatever it could of thought or know- Of ten men who leave the place of their birth, four, ledge on the subject; and by introducing measures, probably, get a settlement by yearly hiring, and four the effects of which will be, and are intended to be, others by renting a small tenement; while two or gradual. The lords seemed at first to have been sur. three may return to the place of their nativity, and prised that the poor-laws were not abolished before settle there. Now, under the present system, here are the end of the first session of Parliament; and accord- eight men settled where they have a right to beg ingly set up a little rival committee of their own, without being removed. The probability is, that they which did little or nothing, and will not, we believe be will all beg; and that their virtue will give way to the renewed. We are so much less sanguine than those incessant temptation of the poor-laws: but if these noble legislators, that we shall think the improvement men had felt from the very beginning, that removal immense, and a subject of very general congratulation, from the place where they wished most to live would if the poor-rates are perceptibly diminished, and if be the sure consequence of their idleness and extravathe system of pauperism is clearly going down in gance, the probability is, that they would have escaptwenty or thirty years hence. ed 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 legally settled, and have therefore no right to ask charity-for the plain reason, that they have nothing to depend upon but their own exerI am not quite so wrong in this as I seem to be, nor after tions: in short, for them the poor-laws hardly exist; all our experience am I satisfied that there has not been a good and they are such as the great mass of English peasdeal of rashness and precipitation in the conduct of this admir-antry would be, if we had escaped the curse of these able measure. You have not been able to carry the law into laws altogether. manufacturing countries. Parliament will compel you to soften some of the more severe clauses. It has been the nucleus of general insurrection and chartism. The Duke of Wellington wisely recommended that the experiment should be first tried in a few counties round the metropolis. We think, upon the whole, that govenment has been fortunate in the selection of the gentleman who is placed at the head of the committee for the revision of the poor-laws; or rather, we should say (for he is a 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 inendicity. 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 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 anything 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 be 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. tlement 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 set. tlement 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 opin ion 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 oppos ite of the policy which ought to be pursued. 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 gen. eral good. But, in truth, it is rather ridiculous to talk of a parish not having benefited by the labour of the Let us suppose, then, that we have got rid of all the man who is returned upon their hands in his old age. means of gaining a settlement, or right to become a If such parish resembles most of those in England, the beggar, except by birth, parentage, and marriage; for absence of a man for thirty or forty years has been a the wife, of course, must fall into the settlement of great good instead of an evil; they have had many the husband; and the children, till emancipated, must more labourers than they could employ; and the very be removed, if their parents are removed. This point man whom they are complaining of supporting for his gained, the task of regulating the law expenses of the few last years, would, in all probability, have been a poor-laws would be nearly accomplished: for the beggar forty years before, if he had remained among most fertile causes of dispute would be removed. Ev them; or, by pushing him out of work, would have ery first settlement is an inexhaustible source of litigamade some other man a beggar. Are the benefits de- tion and expense to the miserable rustics. Upon the rived from prosperous manufactures limited to the simple fact, for example, of a farmer hiring a plough. parishes which contain them? The industry of Hali- man for a year, arise the following afflicting questions: fax, Huddersfield, or Leeds, is felt across the kingdom-Was it an expressed contract? Was it an implied as far as the Eastern Sea. The prices of meat and contract? Was it an implied hiring of the ploughcorn at the markets of York and Malton are instantly man, rebutted by circumstances? Was the ploughaffected by any increase of demand and rise of wages man's contract for a year's prospective service? Was in the manufacturing districts to the west. They have it a customary hiring of the ploughman? Was it a rebenefited these distant places, and found labour for trospective hiring of the ploughman? Was it a contheir superfluous hands by the prosperity of their man- ditional hiring? Was it a general hiring? Was it a ufactures. Where, then, would be the injustice, if special, or a special yearly hiring, or a special hiring the manufacturers, in the time of stagnation and pov- with wages reserved weekly? Did the farmer make erty, were returned to their birth settlements? But as it a special conditional hiring with warning, or an exthe law now stands, population tumors, of the most ceptive hiring? Was the service of the ploughman dangerous nature, may spring up in any parish:-a actual or constructive? Was there any dispensation manufacturer, concealing his intention, may settle expressed or implied?—or was there a dissolution imthere, take 200 or 300 apprentices, fail, and half ruin plied?-by new agreement?-or mutual consent ?—or the parish which has been the scene of his operations. by justices?-or by any other of the ten thousand For these reasons, we strongly recommend to Mr. means which the ingenuity of lawyers has created? Bourne to narrow as much as possible, in all his future Can any one be surprised, after this, that the amount bills, the means of acquiring settlements, and to re- of appeals for removals, in the four quarter sessions duce them ultimately to parentage, birth, and marriage ending Mid-summer, 1817, were four thousand seren -convinced that, by so doing, he will, in furtherance hundred? Can any man doubt that it is necessary to of the great object of abolishing the poor-laws, be only reduce the hydra to as few heads as possible? or can limiting the right of begging, and preventing the resi- any other objection be stated to such reduction, than dent and almsman from being (as they now common- the number of attorneys and provincial counsel, whom ly are) one and the same person. But, before we dis- it will bring into the poor-house? Mr. Nicol says, miss this part of the subject, we must say a few words that the greater number of modes of settlement do not upon the methods by which settlements are now gain- increase litigation. He may just as well say, that the number of 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 er. idence is assisted by registers. ed. 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 twenty years by short hirings, gains no set This has been done. Under the head of law expenses, we are convinced * Commons' Report, 1817. attention they would be able to afford them at their own houses. a great deal may be done, by making some slight alteration in the law of removals. At present, removals are made without any warning to the parties to whom The common people have been so much accustomed the pauper is removed; and the first intimation which to resort to magistrates for relief, that it is certainly a the defendant parish receives of the projected in- delicate business to wean them from this bad habit; crease of their population is, by the arrival of the but it is essential to the great objects which the poor. father, mother, and eight or nine children at the over- committee have in view, that the power of magistrates seer's door-where they are tumbled out, with the of ordering relief should be gradually taken away. justice's order about their necks, and left as a specta- When this is once done, half the difficulties of the cle to the assembled and indignaut parishioners. No abolition are accomplished. We will suggest a few sooner have the poor wretches become a little famili-hints as to the means by which this desirable end arized to their new parish, than the order is appealed may be promoted. against, and they are recarted with the same precipitate indecency-Quo fata trahunt, retrahuntque. A poor man now comes to a magistrate any day in the week, and any hour in the day, to complain of the No removal should ever take place without due no- overseers, or of the select committee. Suppose he tice to the parish to which the pauper is to be remov were to be made to wait a little, and to feel for a short ed, nor till the time in which it may be appealed time the bitteruess of that poverty which, by idleness, against is passed by. Notice to be according to the extravagance, and hasty marriage, he has probably distance either by letter, or personally; and the de- brought upon himself. To effect this object, we cision should be made by the justices at their petty would prohibit all orders for relief, by justices, besessions, with as much care and attention as if there tween the 1st and 10th day of the month; and leave were no appeal from their decision. An absurd no- the poor entirely in the hands of the overseers, or of tion prevails among magistrates, that they need not the select vestry, for that period. Here is a beginning take inuch trouble in the investigation of removals, a gradual abolition of one of the first features of the because their errors may be corrected by a superior poor-laws. And it is without risk of tumult; for no court; whereas, it is an object of great importance, one will run the risk of breaking the laws for an evil by a fair and diligent investigation in the nearest and to which he anticipates so speedy a termination. This cheapest court, to convince the country people which Decameron of overscers' despotism, and paupers' sufparty is right and which is wrong and in this man-fering, is the very thing wanted. It will teach the ner to prevent them from becoming the prey of law parishes to administer their own charity responsibly, vermin. We are convinced that this subject of the and to depend upon their own judgment. It will teach removal of poor is well worthy a short and separate the poor the miseries of pauperism and dependence ; bill. Mr. Bourne thinks it would be very difficult to and will be a warning to uninarried young men not draw up such a bill. We are quite satisfied we could hastily and rashly to place themselves, their wives and draw up one in ten minutes that would completely children, in the same miserable situation; and it will answer the end proposed, and cure the evil complain-effect all these objects gradually, and without danger. ed of. It would of course be the same thing on principle, it We proceed to a number of small details, which are relief were confined to three days between the 1st and well worth the attention of the legislature. Over- 10th of each month; three between the 10th and 20th ; seers' accounts should be given in quarterly, and pass three between the 20th and the end of the month ;-or ed by the justices, as they now are, annually. The in any other manner that would gradually crumble office of overseer should be triennial. The accounts away the power, and check the gratuitous munificence which have nothing to do with the poor, such as the of justices,-give authority over their own affairs to constable's account, should be kept and passed sepa- the heads of the parish, and teach the poor, by little rately from them; and the vestry should have the and little, that they must suffer if they are imprudent. power of ordering a certain portion of the superfluous It is understood in all these observations, that the poor upon the roads. But we beseech all speculators overseers are bound to support their poor without any in poor-laws to remember, that the machinery they order of justices; and that death arising from absolute must work with is of a very coarse description. An want should expose those officers to very severe pun. overseer must always be a limited, uneducated per- ishments, if it could be traced to their inhumanity and son, but little interested in what he is about, and with neglect. The time must come when we must do with much business of his own on his hands. The exten-out this; but we are not got so far yet-and are at sive interference of gentlemen with those matters is quite visionary and impossible. If gentlemen were tide-waiters, the custom-house would be better served; if gentlemen would become petty constables, the police would be improved; if bridges were made of gold, instead of iron, they would not rust. But there are not enough of these articles for such purposes, A great part of the evils of the poor laws, has been occasioned by the large powers intrusted to individual justices. Every body is full of humanity and good nature when he can relieve misfortune by putting his hand-in his neighbour's pocket. Who can bear to see a fellow-ereature suffering pain and poverty, when he can order other fellow-creatures to relieve him? Is it in human nature, that A should see B in tears and misery, and not order C to assist him? Such a power must, of course, be liable to every degree of abuse; and the sooner the power of ordering relief can be taken out of the hands of magistrates, the sooner shall we begin to experience some mitigation of the evils of the poor-laws. The special-vestry bill is good for this purpose, as far as it goes; but it goes a very little way; and we much doubt if it will operate as any sort of abridgment to the power of magistrates granting relief. A single magistrate must not act under this bill but in cases of special emergency. But every case of distress is a case of special emergency; and the double magistrates, holding their petty sessious at some little alehouse, and overwhelmed with all the monthly business of the hundred, cannot possibly give to the pleadings of the overseer and pauper half the present only getting rid of justices, not of overseers. Mr. Davison seems to think that the plea of old age stands upon a very different footing, with respect to the poor-laws, from all other pleas. But why should this plea be more favoured than that of sickness?— why more than losses in trade, incurred by no imprudence. Every man knows he is exposed to the helplessness of age; but sickness and sudden ruin are very often escaped-comparatively seldom happen. Why is a man exclusively to be protected against that evil which he must have foreseen longer than any other, and has had the longest time to guard against? Mr. Davison's objections to a limited expenditure are much more satisfactory, These we shall lay before our readers; and we recommend them to the attention of the committee, I shall advert next to the plan of a limitation upon the amount of rates to be assessed in future. This limitation, as it is a pledge of some protection to the property now subjected to the maintenance of the poor against the indefinite encroachment which otherwise threatens it, is, in that light, certainly a benefit; and supposing it were rigorously adhered to, the very knowledge, among the parish expectants, that there was some limit to their range of expectation, some barrier which they could not pass, might incline them to turn their thoughts homeward again to the care of themselves. But it is an expedient, at the best, far from being satisfactory. In the first place, there is much reason to fear that such a limitation would not *All gradation and caution have been banished since the reform bill-rapid high-pressure wisdom is the only agent in public affairs. |