TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 197 



but there was no evidence that one slave had been freed through that proclamation. 

 Even so late as last year Arab merchants openly exposed slaves for sale in the 

 capital, and no attempt had yet been made to give freedom to the masses of slaves 

 ■who were natives of Madagascar. After referring to the exertions made by Dr. 

 Kirk, tlu-ough whom the Sidtan of Zanzibar had been brought to make the treaty 

 with England, he said that, according to Lord Derby, the Foreign Office was in 

 communication with the Turkish and Egyptian Governments with a ^■iew to the 

 .suppression of the sla'*e trade. Thus far has the sla^e trade been abolished ; but 

 the progress of this movement depended entirely npon a strong public opinion. 

 Circumstances were propitious, and an earnest eflbrt might now realize all the 

 sacred conditions of British freedom. 



On some SjiecUd Evils of the Scottish Poor Laiv. By Alex. M'Neel Caied. 



The author, after referring to the position of the poor people before the dis- 

 ruption, and the fact that in some measure it led to the passing of the Poor Law 

 Act of 1845, said that in Scotland the parish minister and live of his elders were 

 entitled to hfe-seats at the Parochial Board for managing the poor, whUe in fewer 

 than one in seven of the whole parishes an equal number of members were per- 

 mitted to be elected by the ratepayers. There were 32G parishes out of 811 in 

 which the elected members were restricted by the Board of Supervision to a third 

 of those entitled to seats by reason of ecclesiastical office. There were not a few 

 parishes in which only one member was permitted to be elected. Thus a perilous 

 system had grown up of men who contributed little, having the power of spending 

 the money of ratepayers, who had no "\oice in their appointment and no power to 

 remove them. The constant ■\igilance necessary to keep pauperism within bounds 

 was not liliely to find a place under such a system. Then the advance of expen- 

 diture for the poor in Scotland was found in 1847 to be £4.33,915, and in 1S75 

 £7U4,916. Li England, in 1847, the expenditure was £5,298,787, and in 1874, the 

 latest report, it was £7,(304,957 ; while in Ireland, in 1852 (the earliest report he 

 could get), the sum expended was £884,200, while in 1875 it was only £771,553. 

 In Ireland there had been a reduction instead of a growth in the total cost, even 

 including able-bodied, whei'o the population was only five and a half niilUons ; 

 whereas in Scotland the popidation was only three millions, and the able-bodied 

 had no claim on the rates. That was explained by the knowai excess to whicli out- 

 door rehef was carried on in Scotland luider ecclesiastical managers. Of 176,787 

 receiving relief in 1874, only 7752 were in the poorhouse ; while in England onl}' 

 one in five of the poor were put on indoor relief, and in Ireland foity-four were iu 

 the workhouse for every thirty who got outdoor relief. The independence which 

 formerly characterized the Scottish peasantry had been undermined and destroyed 

 through the facility with which outdoor relief had been gi\en. An illustratioii of 

 the lax management was to be fomid in the extent to which loose women of the 

 parish — immarried women with children — recei\ed stipend:! from the poor-rates, 

 enabhng them to live manifestly to their neighbours iu greater ease than others of 

 their rank. In the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright there were found on the roUs eighty- 

 seven dissolute women having 207 children, of whom only three women ha\iiig 

 eight children were sent to the poorhouse. One parish in that county stood among 

 the highest in Europe for bastard}'. In January 1875 there were in the southern 

 district of Scotland alone 741 women with 1473 illegitimate children receiving 

 parish rehef; and in another di.-trict, in May 1875, there were on the outdoor roll 

 330 cases of single women with illegitimate children. Coidd it bo wondered, there- 

 fore, that mider such a system, patronized by the Church and its ministers — unde- 

 signedly no doubt, but very ellt'ctually — the growth of immorality in Scotland 

 should have become so appalling. Tid anybody beHe-\ e that if the management 

 were substantially in the hands of Christian men, elected by those who provided 

 the funds, that such a system could live for three months '^ 



Another evil Avas the area for lating and settlement. That in Scotland was 

 limited to parishes: in England there were only 047 of such areas, while in Scot- 

 land there were 804. In Ivigland tlie papulation to each area wa-i ■■'5,972. while in 



1876. 18 



