The Labo2ir Question. 305 



attention both before and after Young's vigorous expostulation. 

 Public notice, therefore, had to be made of any new rate,^ and 

 careful accounts produced annually.^ 



It is both interesting and curious to find how that which 

 was in monastic times within the special province of the 

 ecclesiastic gradually lapsed into secular hands. "When we 

 broke off our historical sketch of pauper relief at the termina- 

 tion of Elizabeth's reign, the curate, minister, or reader, with 

 the churchwardens, were joint-overseers of the poor. Sunday 

 was the date, and the church was the site of their periodical 

 meetings to discuss the subjects connected with parochial 

 relief. So also in cases where the parish was too large and 

 unwieldy for any effective system, the district was sub-divided 

 into chapelries, whose wardens became ex-of^do joint-overseers 

 of the poor. The sub-division of parishes into townships or 

 villages destroyed the nexus between churchwarden and over- 

 seer. Frequently the former was wanting to the township, 

 whose legitimate head was the constable. Henceforth then 

 the manipulation of poor relief was almost entirely in secular 

 hands, the overseers of each township being appointed, accord- 

 ing to 22 Hen. VUI. c. 12, by two justices dwelling in or near 

 the parish. The churchwardens, the first and original over- 

 seers, continued still to be overseers ; but the subsequent ap- 

 pointment of collectors, and then of their overseers, gradually 

 diminished what was primarily an exclusive right, until we 

 find the churchwardens a minority in the larger body, com- 

 posed of themselves and four subsidy men, whose combined 

 office it was to oversee the poor. Such a process of watering 

 down the authority of the churchwarden hardly seems to have 

 answered. Probably the abuses pointed out by Young were 

 principally owing to this circumstance. At any rate, the legis- 

 lature reduced the number of officials, and combined the office 

 of collector and overseer in the person of one substantial house- 

 holder, so that the churchwarden regained much of his earlier 

 importance in poor-law administration. 



But the greatest defect in the system thus evolved from cen- 

 turies of legislation has yet to be recorded. 



' 17 Geo. II. c. 3. * 17 Geo. II. c. 38. 



II. X 



