298 



ANNUAL REGISTER, 1817. 



perhaps be formed by a reference 

 to the Slims expended in litigation, 

 and the removal of paupers at 

 different periods. These sums 

 amounted in 1776, to 3^,0721 ; 

 in 17S6, to 35,791/.; in 1803, 

 190,072^; in 1815,287,000/. And 

 it appears that the appeals against 

 orders of removal, entered at the 

 four last quarter sessions, amount 

 to about 4,700/. Great however as 

 the inconvenience confessedly is 

 of this constant and increasing li- 

 tigation, there are still other effects 

 of the law of settlement, which it 

 is yet more important to correct ; 

 such are the frauds so frequently 

 committed by those who are in- 

 trusted to prevent even the pro- 

 bability of a burthen being brought 

 on their parish ; and such are the 

 measures, justifiable undoubtedly 

 in point of law, which are adopted 

 very generally in many parts of 

 the kingdom, to defeat the obtain- 

 ing a settlement : the most com- 

 mon of these latter practices is 

 that of hiring labourers for a less 

 period tiian a year ; from whence 

 it naturally and necessarily follows, 

 that a labourer may spend the 

 season of his health and industry 

 in one parish, and be transferred 

 in the decline of life to a distant 

 part of the kingdom. If the means 

 cannot be found of wholly re- 

 moving both the mischief of liti- 

 gation, and the hardship that in 

 particular and not unfrequent in- 

 stances attends the operation of 

 this part of the law, still the com- 

 mittee hope much may be done to 

 mitigate both. The entire abro- 

 gation of the law of settlement 

 lias indeed been suggested, and 

 the suggestion has generally been 

 accompanied with a proposal to 

 maintain the poor from a national 



fund, in order to relieve particular 

 places from the pressure which 

 might in that case arise from an 

 accumulated number of paupers. 

 But believing (for reasons which 

 have been stated in a former part 

 of this Report, to which it more 

 properly belongs,) that transferring 

 these funds from parishes to the 

 government, would be on various 

 grounds in the highest degree in- 

 expedient, the committee cannot 

 but feel, that as long as a provi- 

 sion for the poor is raised by com- 

 pulsory parochial assessments, 

 some means must continue to 

 exist of assigning them to their 

 respective parochial limits ; and 

 they are satisfied, that something 

 short of a total repeal of the law 

 of settlement, yet going further 

 than all the various minor altera- 

 tions which have been suggested 

 from different parts of the king- 

 dom, would simplify the law so 

 much, as to reduce the subject of 

 litigation to a very few questions 

 of fact, place the maintenance of 

 those wtio want relief upon a far 

 more just and equitable footing, 

 and at the same time consult in 

 the greatest degree the comfort 

 and happiness of the poor them- 

 selves. With these vie\vs, your 

 committee recommend, that in 

 future any person residing three 

 years in a parish, without being 



absent more than months in 



each year, and without being in 

 any manner chargeable, should 

 obtain a settlement in such parish ; 

 and to prevent as far as possible 

 this fact becoming the source of 

 such litigation as frequently arises, 

 from the difficulty of ascertaining 

 the most simple facts, by the evi- 

 dence of the paupeis themselves, 

 it might be permitted that after 



such 



