633 



POOR LAWS. 



TOOK LAWS. 



Gil 



the justices at quarter-sessions, may be called upon to assist the less 

 solvent parish. This is called rating parishes in aid. 



The overseers are to collect the rate from the persons rated. If a 

 person rated do not pay when called upon, the overseers may obtain a 

 summons, requiring him to show cause why a warrant should 

 not issue to levy the rate by distress and sale of his goods ; and, 

 if no sufficient cause is shown, the payment is enforced accord- 

 ingly. The party so summoned may show for cause that the rate 

 itself is void, or that he is not liable ; he may also, with the con- 

 sent of the overseers, be excused, if it appear that he is unable to 

 pay through poverty. He may also appeal against the rate, and notice 

 of appeal deprives the magistrates of their jurisdiction to distrain until 

 the appeal is decided, unless the objection is solely on the ground of 

 over-charge, in which case the warrant may issue for such a sum as the 

 property was rated at in the last valid rate. The appeal against the 

 rate on the ground of inequality, unfairness, or incorrectness in the 

 valuation of the property rated may be to justices at special sessions, 

 from whose decision a second appeal lies to the general quarter-sessions. 

 The appeal, on the above grounds, may also be taken to the quarter- 

 sessions in the first instance. If the objection be to the principle of 

 the rate itself, or it is intended to dispute the liability of the property 

 to be rated, the appeal lies to the quarter-sessions only. In all these 

 casos of appeal, notice of appeal and of the precise objections to the 

 rate must be given to the parish-officers, and also to any rated inhabit- 

 ants that may be interested in opposing the appellant, as, for instance, 

 where his ground of complaint is that they have been under-rated. 



The overseers who in some parishes acted under the direction of a 

 select vetry, and are assisted by assistant overseers, were to apply the 

 poor-rate to the relief of the poor of their parish. The poor of the 

 ]rish are, in one sense, all those who happen to be in the parish at 

 the time of their being in distress : for the parish in which they 

 happen to be is bound to afford such paupers immediate, or, as it is 

 called, casual relief. The 13 & 14 Car. II. c. 12, is the foundation of 

 the present law of settlement, which determines the parish to which a 

 pauper belongs, and gives the power of removing him to it. This law 

 is called the law of settlement. The statute enables two justices, upon 

 complaint made by the churchwardens or overseers of the poor of any 

 parish, to any justice of the peace, within forty days after a person 

 coming to settle there, in any tenement under the yearly value of 101., 

 by their warrant to remove such person to the parish where he was 

 " last legally settled, cither as a native, householder, sojourner, 

 apprentice, or servant, for the space of forty days at the least." 

 Later statutes have greatly modified the heads of settlement here 

 enumerated, and have added others ; they have also made a pauper 

 irremovable, until he has become chargeable to the foreign |>arish by 

 receiving relief from it, either in person or through the hands of his 

 wife or children. 



The following are the settlements that subsisted at the passing of 

 the Poor-Law Amendment Act : settlement by birth, parentage, 

 marriage, hiring and service, apprenticeship, renting a tenement, estate, 

 office, payment of rates. Settlements may be divided into two general 

 classes; being, first, natural or derivative settlements, as by birth, 

 parentage, or marriage, to the perfection of which residence in the 

 parish is unnecessary ; secondly, acquired settlements, including all the 

 remaining settlements above mentioned, and to these residence for 

 forty days in the parish is necessary. The following were the modes 

 of acquiring the various settlements which have been enumerated : 1 , 

 settlement by birth. In order that children may not be separated 

 from their parents, the settlement of the father during his life, and the 

 settlement of the mother after his 'death, is the settlement of the 

 children. But legitimate children who have no known settlement are 

 settled in the place of their birth ; so also are illegitimate children, for 

 they can derive neither settlement nor anything else from their 

 parentH. Children, however, during the age of nurture, which continues 

 till they are seven years of age, must not be separated from their 

 parents, and are therefore to be supported in the parish where their 

 parents happen to be, at the expense of the parish of their birth 

 settlement. 2. Settlement by parentage. The settlement of the 

 father, or, if he have none, the maiden settlement of the mother, is 

 communicated to legitimate unemancipated children. After the 

 father's death their settlement shifts with that of the widow, until she 

 marry again, in which case the settlement of her new husband is not 

 communicated to them. A child is said to be unemancipated so long 

 as he forms part of the parent's family. A child is emancipated when 

 he gains a settlement of his own, or, being of the age of twenty-one, 

 lives apart from and independently of the parent, or contracts some 

 relation inconsistent with his continuing a subordinate member of the 

 parent's family, as by marrying or enlisting as a soldier. Any settle- 

 ment of the parent acquired after the child's emancipation is not 

 communicated to him. 3. Settlement by marriage. To prevent the 

 separation of husband and wife, the settlement of the husband is com- 

 municated to the wife ; she can acquire no settlement during marriage ; 

 and, if he have no settlement, she cannot be separated from him by 

 I'ln'.val to her maiden settlement. 4. Si-ttl.nn-nt by hiring and 

 service is acquired by a person unmarried, and without unemancipated 

 children, hiring himself for a year into service, abiding for a year in 

 the same service, and residing for forty days in any parish within the 

 year, and with a view to the service. A general hiring, that is, a 



hiring where nothing is said as to the duration of the contract, is con- 

 sidered a hiring for a year. The service for the year need not be 

 wholly under the hiring for a year, it is sufficient if part of the service 

 be under such hiring ; the residue may be either under another hiring, 

 or under no hiring at all. The settlement is gained in the parish 

 where the servant last completes the residence of forty days the forty 

 days need not be consecutive days ; if the servant reside thirty-nine 

 days in parish A, then forty days in parish B, and finally another day in 

 A, A, where he last completed a residence of forty days, will be the 

 place of his settlement. All the forty days must be within the 

 compass of a single year, but it is sufficient if the residence for any 

 part of the forty days be under the yearly hiring. 5. Settlement by 

 apprenticeship is gained in the parish where a person bound by deed as 

 an apprentice last completes a residence of forty days in his character 

 of apprentice. No service is required, but the apprentice during the 

 necessary period of residence must be under his master's control. 6. 

 Settlement by renting a tenement is acquired by hiring and actually 

 occupying a tenement at the rent of at least 101. a year, payment of 

 rent to that amount, and residence for forty days in the parish where 

 the tenement is. By actual occupation is meant that no part of the 

 tenement must be underlet. 7. Settlement by estate is gained by the 

 possession of any freehold, copyhold, or leasehold property, and resi- 

 dence for forty days in the parish where the estate lies. If the estate 

 come to a party in any way except by purchase, the value of the estate 

 is immaterial; but a purchased estate confers no settlement if the 

 price given was under 30/. But a person residing on his estate, what- 

 ever may be its value, is by Magna Charta irremoveable from it while 

 so residing, although he may have gained no settlement in respect of 

 it. 8. Settlement by office is gained by executing any public office in 

 a parish, such as the office of constable, sexton, &c., for a year, and 

 residing there forty days. The office need not be of a parochial nature, 

 but it must be at least an annual office. 9. Settlement by payment of 

 rates, In order to acquire this settlement a person must have been 

 rated to and have paid the public taxes of a parish, in respect of a 

 tenement hired at a rent of 101. a year, and have paid that amount of 

 rent, and resided forty days in the parish of the tenement. This head 

 of settlement therefore includes all the requisites of settlement by 

 renting a tenement, except the requisite of actual occupation. 



All persons whatsoever, whether natural born subjects of England 

 and Wales, Scotchmen, Irishmen, or foreigners, may gain a settlement 

 in this country. A chargeable pauper is to be removed to the place 

 where he last acquired a settlement. It is often very difficult to find 

 out the place of such last settlement ; this is so more especially in cases 

 of settlement by hiring and service and apprenticeship, where the 

 residence, being unconnected with anything of a fixed nature, as a 

 tenement or office in any particular parish, may be continually shifting, 

 the settlement consequently shifting with it, until the last day of the 

 service or apprenticeship. Paupers who have no settlement must be 

 maintained by the parish in which they happen to be, as casual poor, 

 unless they were born in Scotland or Ireland, or in the islands of Man, 

 Jersey, or Guernsey, in which case they are to be taken under a pass- 

 warrant of two justices to their own country. When a jauper has 

 become chargeable, and it is sought to remove him, he is taken before 

 two justices, who inquire as to his place of settlement, and, if satisfied, 

 upon his examination and such other evidence as may be laid before 

 them, make an order for his removal thither. The parish to which he 

 is removed may dispute its liability by appeal to the quarter-sessions, 

 when the order of removal will be quashed, unless it appear that the 

 pauper is settled in the appellant parish. 



The Poor- Law Amendment Act (4 & 5 Wm. IV., c. 76) has made no 

 change in the law respecting the rateability of property or the mode of 

 collecting the rate. The Act does not apply itself to the rate until 

 collected ; it then takes up the rate for the purpose of securing a 

 better distribution of it. To this end the administration of relief to 

 the poor throughout England and Wales is subject to the control of 

 three commissioners. Their powers, and the new agency established 

 for the administration of relief under their direction, have been already 

 described. In parishes or unions where there are guardians, relief 

 is to be given solely by such guardians or by their order, unless 

 in cases of urgent distress. In these cases an overseer is bound to give 

 temporary relief in articles of absolute necessity, but not in money, 

 and if he refuse, he may be required to do so by a magistrate's order, 

 disobedience to which is visited by a penalty of 5/. In parishes which 

 have no guardians, the management and relief of the poor is still 

 left to overseers. With the exceptions above stated, the task of 

 relieving the poor is wholly withdrawn from overseers, these 

 officers, from ignorant or corrupt motives, having been generally 

 found incompetent to the discharge of so important a duty. They 

 are still however entrusted with the making and collection of the 

 poor-rate, which they are to pay over to those who have the 

 distribution of it. The general discretionary power which magis- 

 trates formerly exercised in ordering relief is also withdrawn. 

 But a single magistrate may still order medical relief, when called 

 for by sudden and dangerous illness ; and two magistrates may order 

 relief to adult persons, who from age or infirmity are unable to work, 

 without requiring them to reside in the workhouse. Kelief U> able- 

 bodied persons cannot be given out of the workhouse, unless with 

 the sanction of the commissioners. In substance, the wants of the 



