158 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE 



that the reason for passing it was the continual increase of 

 the poor throughout the kingdom, which had become exceed- 

 ing burdensome owing to the defects in the law. Poor people, 

 moreover, wandered from one parish to another in order ' to 

 settle where there is the best Stocke, the largest commons 

 or wastes to build cotages, and the most woods for them to 

 burn and destroy.' ^ It was therefore determined to stop 

 these wanderings, and most effectually was it done. Two 

 justices were empowered to remove any person who settled 

 in any tenement under the yearly value of ^lo within forty 

 days to the place where he was last legally settled, unless he 

 gave sufficient security for the discharge of the parish in case 

 he became a pauper. 



It is true that certain relaxations were subsequently made. 

 The Act of 1691, 3 W. & M., c. 2, allowed derivative settle- 

 ments on payment of taxes for one year, serving an annual 

 office, hiring for a year, and apprenticeship ; while the Act of 

 1696, 8 & 9 Wm. Ill, c. 30, allowed the grant of a certificate 

 of settlement, under which safeguard the holder could migrate 

 to a district where his labour was required, the new parish being 

 assured he would not become chargeable to it, and therefore 

 not troubling to remove him till there was actual need : but 

 the statute acted as an effectual check on migration and pre- 

 vented the labourer carrying his work where it was wanted.^ 

 It became the object of parishes to have as few cottages and 

 therefore as few poor as possible. In 'close' parishes, i.e. 

 where all the land belonged to one owner, as distinguished 

 from 'open' ones where it belonged to several, all the cottages 

 were often pulled down so that labourers coming to work in 

 it had to travel long distances in all weathers. We shall see 

 further relaxation in the law in 1795, but it was not until modern 

 times that this abominable system was destroyed. The agri- 



^ Hasbach, op. cit. p. 66, says, ' the abuses complained of in the preamble 

 (of the Act) did actually exist.' 



^ Hasbach, op. cit. pp. 67, 134, says the statute of 1662 did not entail 

 so much evil by hindering migration as is generally supposed. 



