482 
POO 
POP 
A general hiring, without any particular 
time agreed upon, is construed to be a hir- 
ing for a year, and therefore sufficient. 
It is not the terms of the hiring, but the 
intention, tiiat is the criterion; for though a 
servant may be hired for so much per week, 
yet if it is understood at the time, that he is 
to continue for the year if approved of, it is 
equal to a hiring for a year. 
A woman marrying a husband who has a 
known settlement, shall follow her husband’s 
settlement. 
Tiv? act of 9 and 10 W. c. 11. does not 
require a person renting a tenement of 10/. a 
year, to occupy it; it is enough if he rents 
it and resides forty days in the parish.^ 
Poor’s-rate, a t&x levied in England 
and Wales, for tiie relief or support of such 
persons as from age, infirmity, or poverty, 
cannot themselves procure the means of sub- 
sistence. The first law made in England 
respecting paupers was in 1496 ; it directs, 
that everv beg tT ar, not able to woik, shall 
resort to the hundred where he last dwelt, is 
best known, or was born; and shall theie le- 
main, upon pain of being set in the stocks tlnee 
days and three nights, with only bread and 
water, and then shall be put out of town.” 
The monasteries and nunneries with which 
the country then abounded, were the principal 
sources from winch the pool obtained relief. 
In 1531 an act was passed, by which the 
justices of every county were empowered 
to grant licences to poor, aged, and impotent 
persons, to beg within a certain precinct, 
and such as should beg without licence 
or beyond their limits, were to be severely pu- 
nished. 'l'his regulation was soon found in- 
effectual ; and in 1536, the olliceis ot coun- 
ties, towns, and parishes, were directed to 
provide for the support of all aged, pool, 
and impotent persons, who had resided thiee 
years in one place, by means of voluntaiy 
contributions to be raised for this purpose 
in every parish. In la47 and in 155 j, acts 
were passed for the providing for the pool, 
by means of weekly collections nom the 
charitably disposed inhabitants ot each parish ; 
but this" provision was found to be very 
insufficient, particularly as the number of 
beggars had increased considerably upon the 
suppression of the monasteries, from whence 
many of them derived their principal support. 
It was therefore found necessary in 1563, to 
go a step further, by providing, that if any 
parishioner shall refuse to conti ibute volun- 
tarily towards the relief ot the poor; “ the 
justices of the peace at their quarter-sessions, 
may tax him to a reasonable weekly sum, 
which if he refuses to pay, they may commit 
him to prison.” This may be considered as 
the commencement of the poors rate, which 
was rendered more general in 15/2, by an 
act directing that assessments should be 
made of the parishioners of every parish, for 
the relief of the poor. In 1601, nearly the 
present mode of collecting this rate was esta- 
blished • the churchwardens and overseers of 
the poor of every parish, or the greater part of 
them (with the consent of two justices) being 
empowered to raise weekly, or otherwise, by 
taxation of every inhabitant, parson, vicar, 
and other, and of every occupier ot lands or 
houses, materials for employing the poor, and 
competent sums for their relief. lNot.ce to be 
given in church of every such rate, the Iiext 
Sunday, after it is allowed, i he rate to be 
levied by distress, on those who refuse to 
pay it ; but appeals against it may be made 
by those who think themselves aggrieved. 
" In 1735, a committee of the house of com- 
mons was appointed, to consider the existing 
laws relative to the maintenance and settle- 
ment of the poor: who recommended the 
establishment of workhouses, hospitals, and 
houses of correction, to be under the manage- 
ment of proper persons, who should be one 
body politic ; and that the law's relating to 
the poor should be reduced into one act oi 
parliament. 
Return made to parliament of the money 
raised for maintenance of the poor, from 
Easter 1775 to Easter 1776. 
Money raised in England £ 1,678,915 14 4 
Ditto - Wales 40,114 1 0 
£ 1,719,029 15 4 
In 1804, a more particular account was 
obtained, in consequence ot an act passed 
“ for procuring returns relative to the ex- 
pence and maintenance of the poor in Eng- 
land ;” from which it appeared, that the 
number of persons receiving relief from the 
poor’s-rate, was as fol low's: 
1. Persons relieved permanently : 
Out of any house of industry, work- 
house, A'c. - 336,199 
In any house of industry, work- 
house, &c. - 83,468 
2. Children of persons relieved 
permanently out of the house, and 
other children maintained out of the 
house : 
Under 5 years of age - 120,236 
From 5 to 14 years of age 194,914 
3. Persons relieved occasionally' : 305,899 
1,040,716 
This number, great as it appears, is ex- 
clusive of 194,052 persons who were not 
parishioners, the greater part of whom are 
supposed to have been vagrants. 
The total sum raised by the poor’s-rate and 
other parish rates in England and Wales, in 
the year ending Easter, 1803, was, 
5,348,205 / 9v. 34c/. ; of which 4,267,96 5/. 
9s. 2d. was expended on account of the poor. 
The average rate in the pound ot the 
poor’s-rate for the year 1 803, was in all Eng- 
land 4s. 4 id, in Wales, 7s. 1 id. 
POPE, Papa, Father, the sovereign 
pontiff, or supreme head of the Romish 
church. The appellation of pope was an- 
tiently given to all Christian bishops ; but 
about the latter. end of the eleventh century, 
in the pontificate of Gregory VII. it was 
usurped by the bishop of Rome, whose pe- 
culiar title it has ever since continued. The 
spiritual monarchy of Rome sprung up 
soon after the declension of the Roman em- 
pire. This sovereign is addressed under the 
term holiness, and in the council of the Late- 
ran held under Innocent III. he was declared 
ordinary of ordinaries. The pope was an 
absolute monarch in his Italian dominions, 
and his power was very considerable; being 
able, in case of necessity, to put fifty thou- 
sand men into the field, besides his naval 
strength in galleys. The French revolution, 
which lias reversed all order, and overthrown 
every government w here its power extended, 
and substituted a barbarous and military ty- 
ranny in its place, has greatly impaired the 
POP 
splendour, dignity, and power of the pope; 
nor shall we be at afl surprised to see the 
papal throne entirely reversed, and the terri- 
tories added to some of the subordinate J 
kingdoms lately erected by the usurper of 
France. 
POPLlTdEUS. See Anatomy. 
POPLITEA. See Anatomy. 
POPPY. SeePAPAVER. 
POPULATION, the state ®f a country 
with respect to the number of inhabitants. I 
The greater number of persons any country 
contains, the greater are the means it pos- | 
sesses of carrying agriculture, manufactures, I 
and commerce, to a great extent, and like- j 
wise of defending itself against any hostile 
attempts of other states ; a high degree of 
population lias therefore been generally con- 
sidered as conducive to national prosperity 
and security ; and almost all writers on po- 
litical economy, have assumed an increasing 
population as one of the principal objects j 
which the internal regulations oi a country j 
should be calculated to promote. A very- 
different view of the subject has been lately 
given by Mr. Malthus, who, adopting as a 
principle, “ the constant tendency in all ani- ; 
mated life to increase beyond the nourish- . 
nient prepared for it,” traces to this source j 
a very considerable portion of the vice and 
misery . and of that unequal distribution of j 
the bounties of nature, which it has been the 
unceasing object of the enlightened philan- i 
thropist in all ages to correct. The sub- j 
ject will perhaps be seen in a clearer light, ; 
if we endeavour to ascertain, what would be 
the natural increase of population, if left to 
exert itself with perfect freedom ; and what j 
might be expected to be the rate ot increase ; 
in the productions of the earth, under the 
most favourable circumstances of human in- 
dustry. It will be allowed, that no country 
has hitherto been known, where the manners 
were so pure and simple, and the means of j 
subsistence so abundant, that no check what- I 
ever has existed to early marriages, from the | 
difficulty of providing for a family ; and no 
waste of the human species has been occasion- 
ed afterwards by vicious customs, by towns, 
by unhealthy occupations, or too severe la- 
bour ; consequently in no state that w'e have j 
yet known, lias the power of population been 
left to exert itself with perfect freedom. In I 
the northern states of America, where the < 
means of subsistence have been more ample, ’ 
the manners of the people more pure, and j 
the checks to early marriages fewer, than in * 
any of the modern states of Europe, the popu- 
lation was found to double itselt for some ; 
successive periods, every twenty-five years. 
In the back settlements, this effect took place * 
in fifteen years. Sir W. Petty supposed a, : 
doubling possible in so short a time as ten 
years; but to be sure of being within the 
truth, Mr. Malthus takes the slowest of these 
rates of increase, and thus assumes that popu- 
lation, when unchecked, goes on doubling 
itself every twenty-five years, or increases i 
in a geometrical ratio. The rate according] 
to which the productions of the earth may ; 
be supposed to increase, is not so easily de- 
tef mined; but it is certain, that when acre 
has been added to acre, till all the fertile 
land is occupied, the yearly increase of food ■ 
must depend upon the amelioration of the j 
land already in cultivation ; this is a stream 
which, from the nature of all soils, instead of. 
