But its administration by local persons displayed little
humanity and less wisdom. Pauperism was created by
the most indiscriminate and lavish grants of outdoor
relief, and the aged and infirm paupers were crowded in
the utmost discomfort into the house. The poorhouse, in
which the permanent paupers were crowded, was utterly
unsuited for its purpose. No attempt was made to classify
the inmates; no attempt was made to provide the
commonest appliances for ensuring health, warmth, or
decency.

Theirs is yon house, that holds the parish poor,
Whose walls of mud scarce bear the broken door;
There, where the putrid vapours flagging play,
And the dull wheel hums doleful through the day.

Such is that room which one rude beam divides,
And naked rafters form the sloping sides:
Where the vile bands that bind the thatch are seen,
And lath and mud are all that lie between,

Save one dull pane, that, coarsely patched, gives way
To the rude tempest, yet excludes the day.1

Happily, however, for themselves, it was only a small minority of the paupers who had the misfortune to live in the poor-house. The vast mass of the population, paupers in the strict sense of the term, resided in their own wretched cottages. The administrators of the poor law were employers of labour. Their chief object in administering the law was to reduce the price of labour, and their whole efforts were, intentionally or unintentionally, directed to this end. Wages, being reduced to the minimum at which life could be supported under any circumstances, were supplemented in years of distress, or in the case of large families, by out-door relief. A large family seemed, in consequence, an object to every working man, and the prudential considerations, which might have induced the poor to abstain from matrimony, were

1 Crabbe's Village, Book I.

СНАР.

II.

CHAP.

II.

Settle

ment.

removed. Under such a system a labourer in an agri-
cultural district was inevitably rendered a pauper; he
was deprived of all means for exercising the virtue of
prudence, and became almost necessarily improvident ;
he was brought to look upon the parish allowance as his
freehold. . . and at seasons when it no longer suited the
farmer to give employment, the whole labouring part of
the population might be, and often was, thrown upon the
rates,' i

Our poor how feed we? to the most we give
A weekly dole."

The extravagance which was one result of this system
was only one of the evils which was occasioned by
it. During the reign of George II., the amount raised
within the year of poor rates and county rates in England
and Wales was only 730,000l. In 1775 the amount was
more than doubled, having been 1,720,000l., of which
sum rather more than a million and a half was expended
for the relief of the poor. The War of American Inde-
pendence. crippled the resources of the people and
aggravated the distresses of the poor. From that time
to the close of the last French war in 1814, the sums
levied in poor rates were in a state of continued progres-
sion. The average sum expended for the relief of the
poor in the three years from 1812-13 to 1814-15
amounted to 6,123,177.' It was incidentally stated in
the House of Commons in 1828 that there were 1,040,000
persons in receipt of relief in 1801; 1,340,000 in 1811;
and, 1,500,000 in 1821. It was estimated that the number
had risen to 1,700,000 in 1826; and 1,850,000 in 1827.1
The burden, which had thus been rapidly thrown on
the rates, was so vast that the ratepayers naturally
endeavoured to relieve themselves as far as possible from

1 Porter's Progress, pp. 90, 91.

2 Crabbe's Borough, Letter XVIII. 3 Porter's Progress of the Nation, p. 86. 4 Hansard, New Series, vol. xviii. p. 1527,

its pressure.
No one parish, indeed, had machinery at
its disposal for reducing the aggregate weight of pauperism,
but every parish endeavoured to shift as much of the
burden as possible on to its neighbour. The burden, so it
seemed to the narrow understanding of the country ves
trymen, could be most easily shifted off their own shoul
ders by enforcing the law of settlement. No provision
was made, in the reign of Elizabeth, when the poor laws
were originally instituted, for ascertaining the place of
settlement of the indigent poor. The great principles,
which Parliament then laid down, were that the lame,
the impotent, the old, and the blind should receive neces-
sary relief, and that the idle and the vagabond should be
set to work. It was not till after the Restoration that a
settlement was first thought of. The short reign of
Charles II. will be always memorable for the selfish legis-
lation passed in it. It was in the reign of Charles II. that
protection first became a reality; it was in the reign of
Charles II. that the navigation laws were re-enacted; it
was in the reign of Charles II. that a Parliament of land-
lords replaced their own feudal burdens with an excise;
it was in the reign of Charles II. that religious disabili-
ties were introduced; it was in the reign of Charles II.
that the poor were for the first time settled.'

The legislators of 1662 declared that the number of the poor had become very great and burthensome, and that the burthen was due to the defects in the law concerning the settling of the poor. 'Whereas by reason of some defects in the law, poor people are not restrained from going from one parish to another, and therefore do endeavour to settle themselves in those parishes where there is the best stock . . . it shall and may be lawful for any two justices of the peace to remove or convey such person or persons to the last parish wherein they were legally settled.' The effects of this statute were For the opposite view, see Hist. of Civilization, vol. i. p. 381.

CHAP.

II.

CHAP.

II.

Parish Ap

prentices.

very mischievous.
The poor, in an imperfect fashion,
were endeavouring to accommodate themselves to the
great law of demand and supply, and to repair to the
parishes where their labour was most required. The
legislature stepped in, and insisted on their remaining in
the miserable localities in which they had been born.
The rich man might employ his capital in any industry
and in any locality; the poor man might not remove his
labour from the narrow circle in which his hard lot had
been cast.1

If, however, the overseers of rural parishes resented the influx of poor people into their little dominions, they were only too glad to get rid of the children of their own poor. At the period at which this history opens, no person could practise any trade unless he had previously served a seven years' apprenticeship. In the great majority of cases apprenticeships were voluntary contracts, between the father of a child on one side, and the employer on the other. And to these apprenticeships there was usually no objection. The father might generally be trusted with the selection of a kind master for his son, and the lad ran no more risk of ill-treatment than if he had been sent to school. But there was another class of apprentices much less fortunately situated. The parish had the right to apprentice the children of poor parents to any trade, and the master was compelled to receive the apprentices.2 Children under this law might be sent to the most distant parts of the kingdom.

1 By the Act of Charles II. a poor
person could get a settlement after 40
days' residence. But by a law in
the next reign it was enacted that
such settlement should not count
unless notice had been given in
writing to the parish overseers.
Act of William III. further enacted
that such notice should be published
in the church and registered. An
Act of 1795 forbade the removal of

An

any poor person until he became actually chargeable; but re-enacted all the other old conditions of settlement, and declared that no settlement should be gained by the payment of poor-rates on any tenement rented at less than 10l. a year. There is a good description of these Acts in Hansard, N.S., vol. ix. p.

695.

2 Warren's Blackstone, p. 361.

'It is a very common practice,' wrote Romilly in 1811, 'with the great populous parishes in London, to bind children in large numbers to the proprietors of cotton mills in Lancashire and Yorkshire, at a distance of 200 miles. The children, who are sent off by waggon-loads at a time, are as much lost for ever to their parents as if they were shipped off for the West Indies. The parishes that bind them, by procuring a settlement for the children at the end of forty days, get rid of them for ever, and the poor children have not a human being in the world to whom they can look up for redress against the wrongs they may be exposed to from these wholesale dealers in them, whose object it is to get everything that they can possibly wring from their excessive labour and fatigue.' 'Instances (and not very few) have occurred in our criminal tribunals of wretches who have murdered their parish apprentices, that they might get fresh premiums with new apprentices.' 2 The manufacturers, it is shocking to state, agreed to take one idiot for every nineteen sane children. The sufferings, which these poor children endured, hardly admit of relation. There were no laws to regulate infant labour: there were no laws to insure either their education, their health, or their good treatment. Children commonly commenced to work at the age of seven; they occasionally began work at five. Their ordinary labour lasted for fifteen hours a day, and was not rarely extended to seventeen. 'Little creatures,' said Sir Robert Peel, in 1816, 'torn from their beds, were compelled to work, at the age of six years, from early morn till late at night, a space of perhaps fifteen to sixteen hours.' 5 The children were little

better than slaves, and their condition was more deplorable because their services were less valuable.

Those,

CHAP.

II.