93 



battueing, may, 1 think, for a morning's amusement, give 

 them a tolerably good imitation of a battue by taking them 

 into a tenant's farm-yard that is well-stocked with poultry. 

 If landlords would request their tenants to take farming 

 men and boys into their families as they formerly used, it 

 would bring up the rising generation of the peasantry to 

 more orderly habits, and in a very great degree prevent that 

 great source of evil amongst them, improvident early mar- 

 riages. The youth of agricultural parishes have of late 

 years been under no controul after six o'clock in the even- 

 ing ; consequently, from an unrestricted intercourse with 

 the young females of the parish, the greater part of them 

 have been obliged to marry ; and thus, in the agricultural 

 population, the chief part of the marriages, of late years, 

 has not been of men and women, but of boys and girls, 

 who, relying on their parish funds, never had one thought 

 how themselves and the children they might have, were to 

 be maintained. The Poor Law Amendment Act, which, in 

 its operation, has exceeded the most sanguine expectations, 

 will greatly correct this evil, without pressing in any man- 

 ner hard on the really indigent poor. The poor-rates of 

 the populous agricultural parish in which I reside, have 

 been reduced nearly one-half. My opinions on Poor-laws 

 are the same I publicly expressed, more than twenty years 

 ago: which were, that all persons in the kingdom who 

 possessed property should be answerable to those who had 

 none ; that if, from age or infirmity, they were incapable of 

 working lor their livelihood, they should have relief from 

 their parishes ; and that those who were capable if they 

 could satisfy the overseers that it had not been in their 

 power to procure work their parish should be bound to 

 find it for them, or to give them such relief as would keep 

 them from starving ; that if the laws did not afford them 

 this protection, they could not be justly called upon to 

 uphold the laws by serving in the militia, or in any other 

 manner. The act of Klizabeth gave them this protection. 

 The Poor Law Amendment Act has not in any way les- 

 sened it ; its enactment was only for the purpose of 

 correcting the abuses which had crept into the Poor 

 Laws, and thus preventing idle and improvident labourers 

 from being as well off as the hard-working and provident. 



