POOR-LAWS 



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most nnjust and absurd restrictions on the freedom 

 of labour. The 23d Ed. III. forbids giving alms 

 to vagrants, on pain of imprisonment ; then also 

 the laws of settlement had their origin in the 

 attempt to chain the free labourer to the land. 

 The 12th Richard II. (1388), chap. 7, is the 

 first statute that makes provision for the im- 

 potent poor. The statutes of Henry VII. en- 

 deavour to carry out, by the severest measures, 

 the system of repression. The 27th Henry VIIL, 

 chap. 25 (1536), introduced the principle of com- 

 pulsory assistance. Each parish was ordered to 

 receive and provide for the impotent, and set the 

 able-lwdied to work. Alms were to be collected 

 into a general fund, and indiscriminate almsgiving 

 was forbidden, on pain of forfeiture of ten times 

 the value given. The sturdy beggar was to be 

 whipped when first caught, next to have his ears 

 cropped, and for a third otfence to suffer death as a 

 felon and enemy to the commonwealth. In 1547 

 the following penalties were substituted viz. 

 branding, on first conviction, with a V on the 

 shoulder, and being adjudged a slave for two years, 

 to be claimed by any one, fed on bread and water, 

 and caused to work by beating, &c. Running away 

 from this tender treatment was punishable with S 

 branded on the face, and slavery for life to the 

 town or parish, on the roads of which the incor- 

 rigible vagrant was to work in chains. A little 

 urging was now found necessary to obtain funds for 

 the maintenance of the poor. The collectors were 

 gently to ask every man and woman at churcli 

 what they would give ; but if one could not be 

 persuaded the bishop was to send for the recusant, 

 and use ' charitable ways and means. ' At length 

 the 5th Elizabeth, chap. 3 (1563), provided that he 

 who obstinately refused to give should be handed 

 over to the justices, who were empowered to tax 

 him at their discretion, and send him to jail for 

 default Ten years later the power of compulsory 

 assessment is given to the justices, and abiding- 

 places are ordered to be provided for the aged and 

 infirm. These statutes culminated in the 43d 

 Elizabeth, chap. 2 ( 1601 ), which has formed the 

 basis of the poor-law system of England up to the 

 present time. It taxed every inhabitant of every 

 parish for the relief of the poor. It directed the 

 justices in every county to appoint three or four 

 substantial householders in each parish to be over- 

 Beers of the poor, along with the churchwardens. 

 It ordered the relief of the impotent, and the 

 apprenticing of children, and the providing of work 

 for the able by means of ' a convenient stock of 

 flax, hemp, wool, thread, iron, and other necessary 

 ware and staff.' 



The great Act of Elizabeth came but slowly into 

 operation. Up to the reign of Charles I. there 

 were many parishes in which no rate was assessed, 

 and which turned away their poor ; but the great 

 evils had IK-CM remedied, and there is little legisla- 

 tion on the subject for the next hundred years. 

 Th! :M William and Mary, chap. 2 ( 1691 ), provides 

 that the persons to be relieved be registered and 

 examined by the vestry, because evils had arisen 

 out of the unlimited power of the churchwardens 

 ami overseers giving relief ' for their own private 

 ends,' by which the charge on the parish was 

 greatly increased, contrary to the true intent of 

 the statute of Elizabeth. This act also gave power 

 to the justices to order relief in cases of emergency, 

 a provision which afterwards became a fruitful 

 source of difficulty. The evils henceforth com- 

 plained of were that many had thrown themselves 

 on the rates who ought to have been supporting 

 themselves independently of such aid ; that pauper 

 labour was found interfering with and displacing 

 industrial labour ; that the overseers were acting 

 with unchecked dishonesty ; and justices, with un- 



restrained liberality, ordering the money of the 

 industrious and prudent to be spent upon the idle 

 and improvident. Efforts were made to remedy 

 these abuses throughout the reigns of the first three 

 Georges, by making the justices act with the over- 

 seers, by rendering the overseers accountable to 

 the parishioners by means of returns and the power 

 of inspection, and by the offer of the workhouse to 

 all applicants for relief. This last provision, made 

 in the reign of George I. (1723), substituted what 

 is called indoor relief for the allowance made to 

 the poor at their own homes, and introduced the 

 workhouse system. The workhouse established on 

 Locke's suggestion by Carey at Bristol was one of 

 the earliest. All who refused to be lodged in the 

 house were to be struck off the poor's-roll and 

 refused relief. A great increase in the number of 

 workhouses took place ; guardians were appointed 

 to guard the pauper children from neglect and 

 improper conduct, and other attempts to improve 

 their administration made. Workhouse Unions 

 were also introduced by Gilbert's Act, 1782, and 

 a succession of acts passed for the protection of 

 parish apprentices. Towards the close of the 18th 

 century a great relaxation took place in the treat- 

 ment of the poor. The famous Speenhamland Act 

 of 1793 meant the establishment by justices of a 

 minimum rate of wages. The 36th Geo. III., chap. 

 10 and 23 (1796), increased the amount, and ex- 

 tended the application for relief. It repealed the 

 workhouse test, and allowed relief to be given in aid 

 of wages. Henceforth outdoor relief became the 

 rule under a variety of systems, which practically 

 turned the poor-laws into a mode of paying wages. 

 In 1801 the amount of the rates was reckoned at 

 4,000,000. In 1820 it had risen to 7,330,254, 

 the justices being now the 'rating' as well as the 

 ' relieving ' authority. 



In 1817 a commission of the House of Commons 

 stated their opinion, that, unless checked, the 

 assessment would swallow up the profits of the 

 land. Though the two Vestry Acts, which resulted 

 from the commission appointed in 1817, seem to 

 have done something to remedy the evils complained 

 of, a new commission to inquire into the operation 

 of the poor-laws was found necessary, and appointed 

 in February 1832. The evidence brought before 

 this commission, with which the names of Bishop 

 Blomrield, Sturges-Bowme, Edwin Chad wick, and 

 Nassau Senior are always connected, revealed a 

 disastrous state of things. The independence, 

 integrity, industry, and domestic virtue of the 

 lower classes were in some places nearly extinct. 

 The great source of the evil was shown to be the 

 relief afforded to the able-bodied in aid of wages. 

 This aid at first reduced the expenditure in wages, 

 and found favour with farmers and magistrates, 

 who framed scales of relief in accordance with the 

 wants of the people. Five modes of outdoor relief 

 were found in operation : ( 1 ) Relief without labour; 

 (2) allowance given, in aid of wages, according to 

 the number of the labourer's family; (3) the 

 Roundsman system, the labourers being let out by 

 the parish, among the employers round ; (4) parish 

 work, generally on the roads ; (5) the labour-rate, 

 the ratepayers preferring to divide among them the 

 pauper labour, and to pay for it, however valueless, 

 instead of raising a rate. Diminished industry ate 

 away the very root of capital. Farmers turned 

 off their men, or refused to employ them at fair 

 wages, thereby causing a surplus of unemployed 

 labour ; they then took them back from the parish 

 at reduced wages, paid out of the rates. From 

 parish after parish came the reply to the queries of 

 the commissioners : ' All our able-bodied labourers 

 receive allowance.' No poor man in such parishes 

 could save ; if it was known that he had a fund of 

 savings ' he would be refused work till the savings 





