His is

was as simple as it has been effectual. an entirely agricultural parish, in which no great proprietors reside; and he prevailed upon the farmers to allow him to say to any poor man ap

“the major part of the parishioners or inhabitants of the said "parish, &c., in vestry or other parish or public meeting for "that purpose assembled, or of so many of them as shall "be so assembled, upon usual notice thereof first given, to purchase or hire any house or houses of the same parish, " &c., and to contract with any person or persons for the "lodging, keeping, maintaining, and employing any or all "such poor in their respective parishes, &c., as shall desire "to receive relief or collection from the same parish, and "there to keep, maintain, and employ all such poor persons, " and take the benefit of all work, labour, and service of any "such poor person or persons who shall be kept or maintained "in any such house or houses, for the better maintenance "and relief of such poor person or persons who shall be "there kept or maintained; and in case any poor person of any parish, &c. where such house or houses shall "be so purchased or hired shall refuse to be lodged, kept, " or maintained in such house or houses, such person or per

sons shall be put out of the book or books where the names "of the persons who ought to receive collections in the said "parish, &c. are to be registered; and shall not be entitled "to ask or receive collection or relief from the churchwardens, or overseers of the same parish," &c.

The last is the best part of this enactment, because it enables the parish to withhold relief, unless the applicant will go into the workhouse, where the helpless young and feeble old should be separated from the able-bodied idle, who by poor fare, and low wages, should be taught, as Mr. Whately has taught them, that their industry may enable them to live better any where than in the workhouse.

plying for relief,

We find work for able-bodied

men in this parish, but give no relief: if you want work, farmer such-a-one has an acre to delve, for the digging of which you will be paid so much a rod as your work is done. The poor thus finding they got only hard work and little pay by applying to the parish, soon ceased to apply at all, and found better work for themselves. The farmers conceived the poor would dig all the land in the parish; but Mr. Whately tells us they did not dig quite half an acre in all.

This was the short and simple, but effectual, method by which Mr. Whately laid a foundation for the improvement of morals and industry in his parish. It is plain that a similar method may be followed in every agricultural parish. It may not be so obvious, but it is not less certain, that means exist of laying a similar foundation for the improvement of morals and the increase of industry every where. Thus, in the parish in which I write, the mud is allowed to accumulate on the banks of the river, to the injury of health in the neighbourhood, thought it would form excellent manure, particularly for meadow-land, and may be carried by water-carriage wherever it may be wanted. In so far as the parish is concerned, the hiring of a few barges would be all that would be required to set the idle able-bodied poor of the parish to fill them. As in Mr.

Whately's parish the poor did not dig quite half an acre, so the poor in St. Margaret's parish probably would not fill quite half a barge: but if they did not, others, probably, would; and that which is now a source of annoyance and discomfort, as well as injurious to the health of the vicinage, might, as it would, prove a means of gain to industry, which would, at all events, be relieved from the burden of enabling able-bodied workmen to live idle who ought to work in order to gain their living.

Herein may appear the inadequacy of the Act of Mr. Sturges Bourne*, and, in truth, of every act of the legislature that attempts to regulate industry or interfere with charity. Neither can be dealt with by act of Parliament: the attempt can only lead to restrain the one and to banish the other.t

But we have had the 43 Eliz. for upwards

* 59 G. 3. c. 12.

† Herein may also appear the inexpediency of a Poor Law for Ireland, whose poor are almost all able-bodied. It would not be difficult to show that the evils which afflict Ireland have proceeded from legislative restraints upon industry, but this is not the place for it. I trust, however, I have said enough to show, that any Poor Law for Ireland would only increase evils springing from restraints upon industry, and that if industry in England were set free from restraints, in place of having too many, we should find we have too few labourers, and in place of Irish vagrants being a burden, we should find them a benefit.

I

of two centuries; and are we to reject it?— No; but we are to cease to make it the instrument of abuses contrary to its intendment. Let us no longer confound relief with work: let no relief be given to the able-bodied; and before even relief is given to the aged, the infirm, or the helpless, let it be enquired, and let it be ascertained, whether it be necessary; for the 43 Eliz. allows only of necessary relief.

For the sick poor, charity, free and unrestrained, has never been wanting in this country Palaces, in the name of hospitals, have been largely provided for the relief of every kind of human suffering except poverty. Supported, as they are founded, by voluntary contributions alone, can we believe that institutions or associations for the relief of honest poverty, or the encouragement of honest industry among the poor, would have been wanting if it had not been for the abuses of the Poor Laws? Let, then, every parish in England set about putting an end to these abuses, as the parishes of Cookham, White Waltham, Thurgaton, and Uley have done; and then in every parish of England, as in those parishes, honest poverty will be relieved, and honest industry encouraged.

CHAP. VII.

EXPEDIENTS FOR THE RELIEF OF THE POOR.

THE grant of small portions of land to cottagers, which is a favourite measure with many, can only have a very limited effect in remedying the abuses of the Poor Laws. It may tend to produce a better description of labourers, and may be highly beneficial as an encouragement to well doing; but this is the extent of it.

It is like a system which has grown up in the northern counties of England, and in the southern counties of Scotland, where every married farm servant has a cottage on the farm, with a piece of garden-ground attached to it, to whom the farmer allows the keep of a cow and a pig, with some poultry, and ploughs for him a piece of potatoe-ground, which is manured with the dung of the cow and pig; and whose services are paid in kind of the produce of the farm, with a very small portion in money.* These

* The particulars of this system are given by Mr. Grey, a proprietor and extensive occupier of land in the county of Durham, in his evidence before the Lords' Committee on the Poor Laws, in 1831. It removes all the objections to large farms which prevail in these districts.