292 
roads, and in other local improvements, 
according to the skill and habits of 
the party. : 
7. Every parish should be provided 
with a Benevolent Fund, to be aided, as 
far as necessary, by the rates, the terms 
of which should be, that for every pound 
deposited by working artizans and la- 
bourers, or servant women, the parties 
should at the end of seven years, on not 
more than twenty pounds, be entitled to 
4s. per annum for life; at the end of a 
reserved fourteen years, to 8s. per an- 
num ; at the end of twenty-one years, to 
12s. per annum; at the end of twenty- 
eight years, to 20s. per annum; and at 
the end of thirty-five years, to 30s. per 
annum: and, in case of intermediate 
death, the original sum, with simple in- 
terest, should be paid to widows or 
children. 
Observation.—These funds, and the 
cottages with gardens, would attach 
the poor to their local connexions infi- 
nitely more than any coercive laws, 
and would in time render direct parish 
relief unnecessary. The fund would 
of course have the benefit of the divi- 
dends of those who did not require 
them; and, although it might not be 
profitable, yet the payment of defi- 
ciencies would be the lightest and 
most advantageous method of paying 
poor-rates. 
8. Every parish should be obliged to 
plant, in public situations, one thousand 
grafted fruit-stocks or trees per annum 
for seven years, and one thousand every 
three years afterwards, for every thou- 
sand acres contained within the parish. 
Observation.— By this plan the re- 
sources of the poor would be indefinitely 
increased at a trifling cost. Grafted 
stocks at this time cost but five shil- 
lings per hundred, and their multipli- 
cation would reduce the cost a third 
within the seven years. Warious other 
fruit-trees might be interspersed. 
9. In towns, also, houses might be 
built, and let at low rates to the married 
poor ; and destitute persons might have a 
meal per day, and lodging at the poor- 
house, under the same limitations as in 
the country. 
Observation —Houses for the mar- 
ried poor, both in town and country, 
would furnish cheap lodgings for the 
unmarried poor, and keep both from 
bad company and the public-house. 
The gratuitous meal and lodging, du- 
ring a limited period, would be attend- 
ed by far less expense than removals 
A new System of Poor- Laws proposed. 
[May 1, 
or permanent relief, which, from there 
being at present no middle course, is the 
only resource of hopeless industry. A 
department for labour should of course 
exist in town poor-houses, as well as 
in country ones. 
10. Those who, from non-renewal of 
certificates of employ, are taken into the 
employment of the parish, and then re- 
Suse to labour, may be committed to the 
House of Correction, by the warrant of 
not less than two justices of the peace, 
Sor limited periods ; and those who wan- 
der for three months after thetr last 
certificate has expired, may, on charge 
of misconduct, be subjected to similar 
discipline. 
Observation.—This last clause will 
satisfy the policy of those who think 
the poor are only to be governed by 
coercion ; but the concession is made in 
confidence, that, if the other provisions 
are liberally carried into effect, not 
one would be sent to houses of correc- 
tion for every five hundred who now 
are sent to them. Under a kind sys- 
tem, which permitted iabour to find 
the best market, and provided for tem- 
porary wants, the poor would shift for 
themselves, and maintain a sturdy and 
honourable independence. 
It is doubtless a difficult problem to 
reconcile the monopolies of wealth with 
the equal rights of all; but the diffi- 
culties diminish as each party con- 
cedes, while they increase to an im- 
practicable extent by the undue ex- 
pectations of wealth and power. 
It has been the notorious effect of 
the present poor-laws to cause the rich 
to hate the poor, and the poor to hate 
the rich; and for each to prey without 
compunction upon the other, in the 
spirit of mutual hostility; while, by 
crippling the exertions of industry, 
these proud and cruel laws have so 
multiplied the numbers of the poor, 
and increased the assessments for their 
support, as to make the rich, poor,— 
without making the poor, either rich or 
comfortable. Nothing, therefore, but 
stubbornness of pride can continue to 
support a systemwhich has utterly failed; 
and nothing but folly and wickedness 
united can induce legislators to cherish 
such a fallen system, and seek further to 
aggravate it by new enactments, made 
in the bad spirit which for half a cen- 
tury has directed the accumulation of 
our statutes on this subject. 
April 11, 1822. ComMON en 
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