APPENDIX to the CHRONICLE. 119 



able to provide for themselves as 

 aforesaid, then the justices of peace, 

 at their general quarter sessions, or 

 the greater number of them, shall 

 rate and assess as aforesaid, any other 

 of other parishes, or out of any 

 parish within the said county, for 

 the purposes aforesaid, as in their 

 discretion shall seem fit." 



This clause, when acted upon as 

 it has been in some instances, is 

 understood to have led to great 

 litigation between parishes, and to 

 have failed of much of its intended 

 effect; and the mode of carrying it 

 into execution appears to your com- 

 mittee to be particularly ill calcu- 

 lated to provide a remedy for the 

 evil which they have described. 

 Though it affords a clear proof of 

 the general intention of the legis- 

 lature in this respect, it shews, that 

 it was not the purpose of parliament, 

 that parishes burdened in a parti- 

 cular manner with poor, should be 

 so far insulated from all others, as 

 never to call upon them for relief; 

 and that even whole counties were 

 considered as liable, if necessary, to 

 be charged with additional poor 

 rates, in order to ease contiguous 

 parishes which were alike burdened. 

 But in respect to the manner of ap- 

 pointing the new burden, it gives 

 much more discretion to the magis- 

 trates than they can be supposed 

 desirous of exercising, while also 

 (leaving evidently out of its con- 

 templation the case of a few adja- 

 cent parishes, all equally disabled 

 from supporting their poor, through 

 their amtiguity to the metropolis), 

 itdirects the levying of the auxiliary 

 rate only in a part of that particular 

 hundred which comprehends the 

 parish or parishes in distress ; except 

 indeed that when such whole hun- 



dred shall have been rendered in the 

 same degree incapable of affording 

 farther support to the poor, direc- 

 tion is then given to raise the whole 

 sum that is necessary, arbitrarily, in 

 any part of the same county. But 

 however defective this clause in the 

 act of Elizabeth may be, the gene- 

 ral principle of it is so equitable in 

 itself, and is so easily rendered ap- 

 plicable to the case of over-burdened 

 parishes adjoining to London, that 

 your committee are induced to ex- 

 press their very clear opinion of the 

 expediency of so far following it, as 

 to authorise the raising of some local 

 fund for the purpose of easing the 

 three parishes of whose distress com- 

 plaints have been made. The sum 

 wanted, in order both to discharge 

 a chief part of their present very 

 oppressive debts, to relieve some of 

 the more indigent housekeepers now 

 charged to the rates, and to provide, 

 until the season of the next harvest, 

 a fund for the support of the poor, 

 that shall bear some proportion to 

 the funds for that purpose, which 

 are within the power of other 

 parishes, will probably be between 

 20,000Z. and 30,000?.; a sum so 

 light, when levied on the whole 

 metropolis, and so evidently called 

 for by the necessity of the case, that 

 your committee trust the propriety 

 of such a measure as they now pro- 

 pose will be generally felt. Whe- 

 ther this sum may best be raised by 

 a small addition to the present poor- 

 rates, subject possibly to some gene- 

 ral as well as particular exemptions, 

 or by a per centage calculated on 

 certain of the assessed taxes paid 

 by persons in the metropolis, or by 

 any other local fund, must be a 

 subject for the consideration of the 

 house. 



