actually chargeable. And when a pauper is ordered to be removed by an order of removal, or by a vagrant pass in case of the sickness of the pauper, the justices making such an order may direct its execution to be suspended and in the case of an order of removal, the expenses of the maintenance of the pauper during such suspension shall be borne by the parish to which the order of removal shall be made. And if an unmarried woman is delivered of a child during such suspension, it shall be settled in the parish which at the time of the birth was the mother's legal settlement.* There are several descriptions of persons who are incapable of gaining any settlement by any acts of their own. The first is that of married women, who during their marriage state cannot acquire any settlement by any act of their own. The next description is infants under seven years of age. Attainted persons are incapable of acquiring a settlement. deserter from the army or navy cannot do any act which will entitle him to a settlement. Soldiers, while quartered in any place, cannot acquire a settlement there by hiring and service. A It remains now to show by what methods a settlement may be gained : viz. I. by birth; II. by parentage, being the settlement of either the father or mother; III. by marriage; IV. by forty days' residence and notice; V. renting for a year a tenement of the annual value of £10; VI. by being charged to and paying the public taxes and levies of the parish; VII. executing any parochial office; VIII. by hiring and service: IX. by apprenticeship; X. by estate. It will be observed, that the first three are cases where settlements may rather be said to be communicated than gained by the parties: the rest are cases of settlements gained by the immediate act of the parties themselves. The following act is of some importance, and therefore necessary to be noticed here. The preamble recites, that divers local acts of parliament having lately passed, containing enactments relative to the maintenance and regulations of the poor, varying the general law with respect of particular districts, parishes, townships, or hamlets, and being expedient that some of such enactments should be repealed, &c., it is enacted, 1. That all enactments and provisions contained in any act or acts of parliament since the commencement of the reign of his late majesty George I., whereby any alteration is made in respect of gaining or not gaining a settlement within any particular district, parish, township, or hamlet, shall be and the same are hereby repealed; and that all and every person shall be deemed and taken to have acquired and to acquire a settlement in every such district, parish, township, or hamlet, by any ways and means he, she, or they would or might do, in case such act or acts, or any of them, had not been made and passed; and notwithstanding the same or any of them are or was in force and operation. II. No person shall be deemed or taken to acquire any settlement in any district, parish, *Professor Christian's Notes on Blackstone. &c., by reason of such person being born of the body of any mother actually confined as a prisoner within the walls of any prison, or any house licensed for the reception of pregnant women, in pursuance of an act made and passed in the 13th year of his present majesty's reign, for the better regulation of lying-in hospitals and other places appropriated for the charitable reception of pregnant women, in which any such prison or house shall be situated. III. That whensoever any person shall be born of the body of any poor person, in any house of industry or house for the reception and care of the poor of any district, &c., which shall be locally situated in such parish, &c., not contributing to such expense, such person shall, so far as regards the settlement of such person, be deemed and taken to be born in the district, &c., by whom the mother of such person was sent to, and on whose account the mother of such person was received and maintained in such house. IV. No person shall be deemed or taken to gain any settlement by reason of any residence within any parish, &c., while he, she, or they shall be detained or confined as a pri soner within any such parish, &c., on any civil process, or for any contempt whatsoever. V. No gatekeeper or tollkeeper of any turnpike road or navigation, or person renting the tolls, and residing in any tollhouse of any turnpike road or navigation, shall thereby gain any settlement in any parish, &c. VI. No person or persons shall gain any settlement in any parish, &c., by reason of any residence in any house or other dwelling place provided for the residence of such person or persons, by any charitable institution, while such person or persons shall be supported and maintained at the expense of such charitable institution, as an object or objects of such charity.* By another statute it is enacted, that every house and building which shall be purchased or hired under its authority, shall in all questions relative to the settlement of persons born or lodged therein, be deemed and taken to be part of the parish on behalf of which the same shall be purchased or hired, and by which the same shall be used as a poorhouse or workhouse.f SETTLEMENT BY BIRTH.-"By 13 Geo. II. c. 29, for confirming and enlarging the powers given by charter to the governors and guardians of the hospital for the maintenance and education of exposed and deserted young children, it is provided, that no child, nurse, or servant, received or employed in such hospital, shall, by virtue thereof, gain any settlement in the parish where such hospital shall be situated, and consequently, the settlement of foundlings is not different from that of all other persons; that is, if they are legitimate children they shall follow their father's settlement, if known; if not, then their mother's settlement. If neither of these is known, or if they are bastards, they shall be settled where they were born; if that cannot be known which is properly the case of a foundling, this seems to fall under the general rule, that every person shall be maintained and provided for in the place where he happens to be, until a settlement can be found; for, in a Christian civilized country, no person ought to be suffered to perish merely for want of necessaries." Only in the present case, the act takes such children of the parish, and leaves them to the provision of the hospital. A bastard child is prima facie settled where born; because a bastard must from necessity gain a settlement in its place of birth, for having no father in the eye of the law it cannot be *51 Geo. III. c. 170. † 59 Geo. III. c. 12. otherwise provided for, except a reputed father can be found. But to this general rule there are several exceptions. If a woman come into a place by privity and collusion of the officers where she belongs, and there is delivered of a bastard, it gains no settlement, notwithstanding its birth. If a bastard is born under an order of removal, and before the mother can be sent to her place of settlement, the child gains no settlement where so born, but at the mother's settlement. A child born in the house of correction or of industry takes its mother's settlement. Legitimate children's birth does not entitle them to a settlement, except where that of their father and mother is unknown, and then only till it is known. Formerly it was held, that a child shall continue with its parents as a nurse child, until it shall be eight years of age, during which time it shall not be deemed capable of gaining a settlement in its own right; but by the later resolutions it seems to be agreed, that a legitimate child shall necessarily follow its parent's settlement as a nurse child, or as part of the family, only until it shall be seven years of age; and that after that age it shall not be removed as part of the father's family, but with an adjudication of the place of its own last legal settlement, as being deemed capable at that age of having gained a settlement for itself. The precise time when any one may have acquired a settlement in his own right, is at the age of seven years and forty days; for a child of seven years of age may be bound apprentice to a shipwright, fisherman, owner of a ship, or other person using the trade of the seas;* and by the vagrant act † a vagrant's child of that age may by the justices be put out an apprentice; and as soon as he shall have resided and lodged in a parish for forty days under the indenture, he will have thereby gained a settlement. BY APPRENTICESHIP.-By the statute‡ "If any person shall be bound an apprentice by indenture, and inhabit in any town or parish, such binding and inhabitation shall be adjudged a good settlement, though no such notice in writing be delivered and published." Being bound an apprentice gives the servant and apprentice a settlement without notice, in that place where they serve the last forty days. This is meant to encourage industry and application to trades and reputable service. BY SERVICE. By a clause in the act § it is enacted, that "If any unmarried person, not having child or children, shall be lawfully hired into any parish or town for one year, such service shall be adjudged and deemed a good settlement therein, though no such notice in writing be delivered and published." And further, "Whereas some doubts having arisen touching the settlement of unmarried persons not having child or children, lawfully hired into any parish or town for one year, it is enacted 5 Eliz. c. 5, s. 12. + 17 Geo. II. 3 W. and M. c. 8. § 3 W. and M. and declared, that no such person so hired as aforesaid, shall be adjudged or deemed to have a good settlement in any such parish or township, unless such person shall continue and abide in the same service during the space of one whole year."* Being hired for a year when unmarried and childless, and serving a year in the same service, gains a settlement. But soldiers, seamen, or any artificer employed in the king's service, are expressly prevented from a settlement till after they have been discharged from the king's service. The settlement of a servant and apprentice is where they last reside forty days in their master's employment; and where they do not reside forty days successively at one place, but alternately in two or more parishes, and more than forty days upon the whole in each in the course of a year, the settlement is in that parish in which they sleep the last night. BY MARRIAGE.-The wife takes her husband's settlement. But it has hitherto been rather doubtful, what shall be deemed a sufficient marriage, so as that a woman shall gain a settlement thereby; and the courts having always been favourable in admitting marriages, although not strictly solemnized according to the laws of the church; now, however, a great distinction is made between marriages solemnized before the 25th of March, 1754, and after that time, for, by the said statute, it is enacted+ that after 25th March, 1754, all marriages (except in Scotland, and except the marriages of Jews and Quakers, where both the parties are Jews or Quakers respectively) which shall be solemnized without license or publication of banns, or in any other place than a church or public chapel, (unless by special license from the archbishop of Canterbury,) or without the consent of parents or guardians, (where either of the parties, not being a widower or widow, is under the age of twenty-one,) shall be null and void to all intents and purposes whatsoever. It is a good general rule, that a woman marrying a husband who has a known settlement, shall follow the husband's; and it appears to be agreed, that a wife cannot gain a separate and distinct settlement from her husband, during their marriage; neither does a woman, marrying a husband who has no known settlement, lose her former settlement which she possessed before her marriage. A woman, marrying a foreigner who dies, must be sent to the place of her own settlement before marriage. A woman, marrying a man who is settled in another parish, changes her own settlement, the law not permitting the separation of man and wife. But if the man has no settlement, hers is suspended during his life, if he remains in England, and is able to maintain her; but in his absence, or after his death, or during his inability, the wife and her children may be removed to her maiden settlement, but it seems *8 and 9 W. and M. c. 30. † 26 Geo. II. c. 33. fully determined that they cannot be separated or removed from the husband. BY NOTICE. For a stranger to gain a settlement in a parish, he is required to give a written notice to a churchwarden, which notice must be publicly read in the church next Sunday after. If after this publication he is allowed to reside forty days within the parish, he then acquires a legal right of settlement. It is the overseer's business to prevent this, by ejecting him, if necessary, before he resides the proper time. After all, this kind of settlement, by continuing forty days, after publication of a written notice, is very seldom obtained, and the design of the acts* is not so much for the gaining of settlements as for preventing them, by persons coming clandestinely into a parish; for the giving and publishing a notice makes ejectment compulsatory on the parish. But if a person's situation is such, that it is doubtful whether he is actually removable or not, he shall, by giving notice, compel the parish either to allow him an uncontested settlement, by suffering him to remain forty days, or by removing him to try the right. But it is now enacted,† that no person in future shall gain a settlement by such notice. BY PARISH RATES.-" If any person who shall come to inhabit in any town or parish shall be charged with, and pay his share towards, the public taxes or levies of the said town or parish, he shall be adjudged to have a legal settlement in the same, though no notice in writing has been delivered and published." But by a subsequent statute,§ "no person after the 22d June, 1795, who shall come into any parish, township, or place, shall gain any settlement therein, by being charged with, or paying, his share towards the public taxes or levies of such places, for and on account of, or in respect of any tenement not being of the yearly value of £10." The tenement must consist of a house, or building, or land, within the parish, or both bona fide hired by him at £10 for the term of one whole year. The rent must be paid by the person hiring, and the whole of the land, as well as the house, must be situate within the same parish or township; and unless the whole of the rent has been actually paid, the tenant does not gain a settlement. BY SERVING A PARISH Office. "But if any person shall come to inhabit in any town or parish, shall for himself and on his own account execute any public annual office or charge in the said town or parish during one whole year, he shall be adjudged to have a legal settlement in the same, though no such notice in writing be delivered and published."|| Executing by legal appointment any parochial office, for a whole year in the * 3 W. and M. c. 11, s. 3, 5. +35 Geo. III. c. 101. 3 W. and M. c. 11, s. 6. 3 W. c. 11 s. 6. |