larger sum for poors'-rate than was and subjected the labourer, if he could assessed off the land for the year end-not from any temporary cause, find ing the 25th of March, 1821. The bread in the parish where he resided, next question was, the propriety of enforcing a different system in administering relief. It never was the intention of the Parliament that passed the Statute of Elizabeth, to relieve persons who were able to work and who preferred a life of idleness. The object of the statute was to relieve those who, by age and infirmities, were unable to labour. That wise and humane principle was departed from in modern times, and incalculable mischief was the consequence. At the present moment, persons who were married, and had large families depending in some degree on parish relief, could not be fairly deprived of that relief. Time should be allowed to enable those persons to recover themselves; but the evil had been carried to so great an extent, that persons marrying looked forward as a matter of course to have their second child supported by the parish. He would be glad to know why such persons ought not to practise those industrious and economical habits which all other persons in society were compelled to practise. It was for the purpose of stopping the progress of this evil, that he proposed as the second part of the Bill, that after the passing of the Bill, no Parish officer or Justice of Peace should be authorized to give relief to any person who, at the time of the passing of the Act, should be unmarried, either for himself or for any member of his family, unless such person should be afflicted with infirmity of body or old age. The poor and industrious man was now obliged to provide for the idle, and the natural effect was, that he was inclined also to become one of the idle class, whom he saw often provided for better than himself. His third measure was one respecting which there was likely to be a great difference of opinion, though he had given it so much consideration that he did not think his own mind could be shaken respecting it. It was to repeal the laws authorising the removal of persons chargeable, or likely to become chargeable, to a parish (hear!), The present system originated with the 13th and 14th Charles II., the effect of which was to restrict the free circulation of labour, to be removed to the parish where he was born, or where his father or grandfather was born, though perhaps there was a certainty that he could not find employment there, and that he must remain a pauper all the days of his life. A more oppressive law was not to be found in any code in Europe (hear, hear, hear!) It in fact made poverty a crime. If a law was now proposed, specifically and avowedly subjecting a man to be banished from one place to another, because he could not find employment from sickness, or any other cause, or could not get enough to feed his family from the dearness of provision, the man would be deemed not only mad, but inhuman (hear !). Yet this in reality was the law as it existed under another name (hear!). This law had been found so oppressive that many attempts had been made to modify it by exceptions-as for instance, when a man had been hired for a year in a parish, or rented a tenement of 101. or paid parish rates or served parish offices." It was said by Dr. Burn, that there were more decisions on this Act than on any law in the Statute Book. The Doctor might have said-more litigation [hear!]. There was probably more litigation created by this law than by all the laws from Magna Charta downwards. An artificial, absurd, and oppressive system had been created, and it became half the business of society to execute it. He (Mr. S.) therefore proposed to make a provision that it should not be lawful to remove any man from the parish in which he resided, as the ground of his being chargeable, or likely to become chargeable. He expected that the manufacturing towns would object to this, as they had done to the provision for making two years' residence a settlement. Under the present system, when there was any cessation of employment in a manufacturing town, the labourers were scattered all over England. From Manchester, for instance, he had seen loads sent to London by the coach, and some even to the West of England. He should take the town of Manchester as an example, because he was best acquainted with it, and because the The Poor Laws were very exactly admi- (for in the manufacturing towns all exnistered there. The effect on that pedients were resorted to to prevent town was, that in Manchester the rates them from getting settlements,) a great were less than in any agricultural population of Scots and Irish had been The Irish parish in England. Their highest collected at Manchester. rate, which in 1816, was Ss. 6d. poor formed a large body, and the sums and at the same a great mass applied to their maintenance varied of county rates from the Nor- from 1,6761. to 9,0001.: but it was rethern part of the county was markable, that from the habits of that thrown in the town. Their rates now excellent and industrious people, the were 4s. 6d,, or four-fifths of the rent, Scots, there were only four families while many parishes in the South and that had ever required relief. The West of England, with agricultural Honourable and Learned Gentleman population, paid 20s. in the pound. then recapitulated his three measures This effect, leaving the poor entirely. To fix a maximum of the poor's out of the question, was not just. rates-2. To deny relief, except to the The poor, who had enriched the town impotent-3. To take away the oppres of Manchester by their labour, were sive laws of settlement and removal. sent away on any cessation of trade, He knew, he observed, that it had been to burthen agricultural parishes that held ont that the fear of removal opehad derived no benefit from them. rated as a check to pauperism. This [hear, hear!] By abolishing this check would not he needed when his system, the strongest motive would be other measures were adopted. given to economy in the administration proper check was the fear of poverty. of the poor rates. He knew an in- That there would be times when there stance of a large factory at Manches- would be need of relief for poverty, ter, where not a man had ever be- beyond what his measures would supcome chargeable to the parish, because ply, he admitted, but to remedy this a regulation was made by which all they might trust to what had never persons employed there subscribed to been known to fail-the benevolence a fund to protect themselves against of the country. casualties. But what would be the should be met by temporary remedies, Temporary distress effect even upon Manchester? In 1815, but they should not perpetuate a law 16, Manchester paid for the poor of which went on increasing the evil which other townships which it maintained, it professed to remedy. He concluded 2,5271., of which probably great part would be returned to it. But, on the by moving for leave to bring in a Bill other hand, Manchester paid to other to amend the Law relating to the Relief of the Poor in England.(Hear, hear!) towns 1,4721.; 2721. for removals; 2001. for a charge, he should be ten- Leave was given to bring in the Bill, der of counsel's fees; 2001. for solici- which Mr. Scarlett accordingly brought tors' bills and other expences, which in; and on moving that it should be with these, amounted to 2,3321. leaving read a first time, the Learned Gentlea balance of only 1921. in its favour; man took occasion to animadvert upon and in the next year, which was the some observations which had been greatest ever known, the balance only sure. A Gallant Friend of his had made as to the principle of the meaamounted to 6001. This was an ap- observed, that it was calculated to afproximation to the increase of charge fect the rights and interests of the which might be thrown by his measure on such a town as Manchester; had any such tendency, or if it was but even if it were 10,0001. a year; calculated in any degree to interfere it but fair that was it should poor; but he could declare that if it pay for the maintenance of the with the independence of the poor, labourers by whom it was enriched. no man would be more unwilling to The law for the removal of the poor of introduce, or to support it than himother countries - he did not now intend self. But he had quite a contrary imto meddle with, though he had an opi-Pression; and as to the rights of the nion respecting it; but he should re-poor, he thought it a most fatal mark, that on account of the injurious manner from which the settlement laws operated upon the English labourers maxim to inculcate that the poor had an unlimited right to parochial aid (hear, hear, hear!). The propagation of such a maxim was indeed but luxury in which their turtle-fed superiors, (as they are called), live, will, after they have perused the subjoined comparative table, agree with me in opinion, that the sons have not half the real comforts (I am not here speaking of the loss of political rights and comforts), their fathers possessed; but have begun to suffer; are in an actual state of suffering, and will continue to suffer even unto the third and fourth generation, unless there be a speedy, and general radical Reform of all abuses in Church and State. That no reasons may be wanting why the approaching accession should not be considered as a memorable era, Í wish to call your and your readers attention, and to impress on your minds, the state of things when George the Second died, when George the Third came to the throne, and when he en too likely to interfere with that object which his Gallant Friend desired, and which he was anxious to promote, namely, an advance in the wages of labour, by a reduction in the poors' rate; for it was a remarkable fact, that in proportion as the poors' rate was low, the wages of labour were high, as appeared from a comparison between Yorkshire and Lancashire, and the counties of Surrey and Sussex. In the two former counties, it was a fact, that while the Poors' Rate was only 2s. in the pound, the average wages of the husbandman, were from 18s. to a guinea a week; whereas, in the latter counties, where the Poor's Rate was from 12s. to 15s. in the pound, the wages of the husbandman were comparatively very low. There was also this remarkable distinction between those counties thus differently circum-ters into the 50th year of his reign.-I stanced with regard to Poors' Rate, namely, that land of pretty much the same quality sold upon much more advantageous terms in the two Northern Counties, than in the counties of Surrey and Sussex. Here the learned gentleman read a statement which he had received from a Mr. Walker, who had resided for four years in a parish near Manchester, where the Poors' Rate, under proper management, had been so materially reduced, that there was reason to hope the parish would be subject, in some time, to no rate at all, if that system of management were regularly pursued. The Bill was read a first time, and ordered to be read a second time on the 24th, and to be printed. am for marking the day as it ought to be marked.—I would have my table read in every parish church in the kingdom, and by the king's permission printed at the back of the Form of Prayer.-George the Second left us, it is true, a debt of about 90 millions. It is now upwards of 600. Since that time we have had 20 years of peace, and 30 years of war. And we have spent in the last year only, (of which 70 millions were raised by taxes) more than the national debt was in the year 1760.-Then, see how the poor-rate and paupers, state and parish paupers, have increased. The number of parish poor was then about 280 thousand, and the poor-rate about one million 200 thousand pounds.-The number, Alton, Oct. 11, 1809. in the 49th year of the reign of George No. III. SIR,-Having often heard the Third, in that part of the United my father expatiate on the happy Kingdom called Great Britain, is uptimes at the beginning of the reign of wards of a million, and the poor-rate the present King, I have been led to upwards of five millions-both inlook a little into the price of the ne- creased, and are still increasing in an cessaries of life at that period, and to equal ratio with the national debt.— judge for myself; and though, often But here comes the pinch.-It now as it has been dinned into my ears by labour to buy a bushel of flour, costcosts a labourer in husbandry ten days the lives-and-fortunes, last-drop-ofblood, and last-shilling men, that no- ing 16s. Sd. taking the average of thing was ever so delightful as living wages at 10s. per week.-In 1760 it under our glorious and happy consti- cost him only five days labour, the tution, and our beloved king, and bushel of flour then being only 5s. 10d. existing circumstances, I cannnot help the Jews, and Jubilee-men, and fatand wages 7s. a week. Oh! but say thinking that my father was right, and that my neighbours, nay, the great he did heretofore,—the parish makes it headed contractors, he lives as well as and valuable majority of the nation, who know nothing of the riot and up to him; and so it does, as the nation makes it up to you, but he loses his independence, his comfort, and his happiness; his very nose is brought to the grindstone,-while you, Sir Balaam, fare sumptuously every day, gain what he loses, and turn the handle of the grindstone. Luxury and dependence are more cruel scourges than the wars which beget them, whatever the whole crew of bloodsuckers, bloated, three-guinea-gormandizing gluttons, who with Mawworm and the rest assembled at Merchant Taylors' Hall on the 25th of October, may think, if they ever think at all, to the contrary. Comparison of the Price of the common necessaries of life in the years 1760, 1809; GOLD! PRECIOUS GOLD! "Because thou sayest, I am rich, “and increased with goods; and "knowest not, that thou art wretched, " and miserable, and poor and blind. “I counsel thee to get gold tried in "the fire, that thou mayest be rich, "and anoint thine eyes with EYE"SALVE, that thou mayest see."Revelations : Ch. 3. V. 17 and 18. of the interest of the Debt. I Never was any thing more ap-short, another stoppage would be plicable than this passage of an open, an avowed, a declared Holy Writ to our case. We national Bankruptcy. Bankruptcy. There have been long bragging of riches would be no subterfuge left.and prosperity, and have now I see, however, some ugly parafound ourselves in poverty and graphs in the Ministerial Newsdistress. But, we are now in the Papers. As thus: "that the right course the government is "public seem to be labouring letting us have gold, and I keep "under a mistake, that the one a large warehouse for vend-pound notes are called in; ing the Eye-Salve, in sixpenny-" whereas, the public need not worths, according to Act of Par-" carry them in, if they do not liament. The Bank keeps pay- "choose, as it is only intended ing honestly. The "promises"" to let gold circulate conjointly on her notes are now made good." with the one pound notes."Nice little parcels are coming up Oh! It is, is it? Very well, then, from the country; and there are those who like one pound notes generally about 40 or 50 per- may keep them, and those who sons at a time getting notes like gold may get gold. What turned into Gold !-It, apparently, a precious beast that must be goes into hoards in general; who deems a bit of paper to be for very little is, as yet, seen as good as a coin of real value! in circulation.-This is right; this is wise; for, one of two thing, will speedily take place another stoppage, or a reduction is afloat: I'll neither keep it, As for me, so long as gold is to be had on demand, I care not a straw about what paper-money |