THE POOR LAW AMENDMENT BILL. 563 



through misfortune or improvidence, could present themselves for 

 relief. The impotent and aged poor who could not work were to 

 have "necessary relief" afforded them gratuitously. Those who 

 were able-bodied and willing to work, but who had been thrown out 

 of employment, were to have work provided for them j and those 

 who could, but would not work, were equally obliged to labour, and 

 earn their bread before they got it. There were only two distinct 

 classes observed in the persons who were to be objects of public 

 public solicitude ; viz., those who could work, and those who could 

 not work. The former were only to receive relief when " having no 

 means to maintain them, and no ordinary and daily trade of life to get 

 their living by ;' and their relief only came in the shape of labour 

 of one kind or another, the necessary materials of " flax, hemp, wool, 

 thread, iron, and other ware and stuff," being provided for their em- 

 ployment. As far as this class of persons was concerned the statute 

 recognised no half measures either of necessity or relief. The labourer, 

 it was wisely considered, was " worthy of his hire ;" therefore, as long 

 as he had any employment, his employer was left to support him. It 

 was only when the man was thrown completely out of employment, 

 and had <( no means," that the legislature interfered to find him both 

 the one and the other. A more fair and simple arrangement could 

 not have been invented, and during the experience of nearly a couple 

 of centuries, viz., from 1601 to 1795, it was found to work steadily 

 and happily. Since the latter date a period of less than forty years 

 all the abuses now so grievously complained of, and so alarmingly 

 spreading, have made their appearance ; and they are all to be 

 be attributed directly to the disregard of the principle of the statute 

 43 Eliz., which we have just endeavoured to set forth. In short, all 

 the evils of our present poor laws are attributable solely to the allow- 

 ance system, and the law of settlements, the latter being a conse- 

 quence of and aggravation of the former. On these two points we 

 now proceed to make a few observations in detail, always begging 

 our readers to bear in mind as a landmark, the famous statute of good 

 Queen Bess. 



The allowance system, under its various modifications and denomi- 

 nations of " labour rate," " roundsmen system," &c. has origin, as we 

 have already stated, only as early as 1795, and was forced upon the 

 magistrates and parish authorities in consequence of the sudden and 

 enormous dearness of the provisions of life which took place in that 

 year, whilst the wages remained stationary at their former level. 

 " The distress of the poor was very great ; and many able-bodied 

 labourers, who had rarely before applied for parish assistance, became 

 claimants for relief. But instead of meeting this emergency as it 

 ought to have been met, by temporary expedients, and by grants of 

 relief proportioned to the exigency of any given case, one uniform 

 system was adopted. The magistrates of Berks, and some other 

 southern counties, issued tables, shewing the wages which, as they 

 affirmed, every labouring man ought to receive, according to the 

 variations in the number of his family and the price of bread; and 

 they accompanied these tables with an order, directing the parish 

 officers to make up the deficit to the labourer, in the event of the 



