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PRINCIPLE

OF THE

ENGLISH POOR LAWS

ILLUSTRATED AND DEfended,

BY

AN HISTORICAL VIEW OF INDIGENCE IN CIVIL SOCIETY;

WITH

SUGGESTIONS RELATIVE TO THEIR IMPROVED

ADMINISTRATION:

TO WHICH ARE ADDED

OBSERVATIONS ON THE STATE OF THE
INDIGENT POOR IN

IRELAND,

AND

THE EXISTING INSTITUTIONS FOR THEIR RELIEF.

BY FREDERICK PAGE, Esq. ONE OF HIS MAJESTY'S DEPUTY LIEUTENANTS FOR THE COUNTY OF BERKS.

"Mutuus ut nos

Adfectus petere auxilium et præstare juberet.”

JUVENAL, Sat. xv.

THIRD EDITION, WITH ADDITIONS.

LONDON:

PUBLISHED BY LONGMAN, REES, ORME, BROWN, AND GREEN; HATCHARD AND SON; WHITMORE AND FENN:

AND MILLIKEN AND SON, DUBLIN.

1830.
YCK*

PUBLIC LIBRARY

ASTOR, LENOX AND TILDEN FOULATIONS. 1900.

133292

DUGDALE COLLECTIONS

PRINTED BY RICHARD TAYLOR, RED LION COURT, FLEET STREET.

PREFACE.

THE following Essay was first published in 1822. It originated immediately in consequence of the attention of the writer having been called to the subject soon after a year's tour on the Continent, by circumstances arising in the parish in which he is now resident, which induced him to serve the office of overseer for a third time.

He had previously served the same office in the years 1794 and 1801, both years wherein the price of provisions was very high. In the first instance it was in a small agricultural parish, in the second in a large and populous town.

The result of his experience in 1794 was communicated to his friend Sir Frederick Eden, and forms twelve pages of his laborious work, being inserted from p. 576 to 587 of the first volume. The opinions he formed and then published, in objections to the Berkshire Table, and against which he

also protested at a meeting which was called to discuss it at the time, and also with respect to the Workhouse System, or the probability of production from forced labour,he still retains.

The Essay was nearly out of print when two circumstances occurred which determined the author on the publication of a new edition:

1. The total repeal of the laws imposing disabilities on the Catholics in Ireland.

2. The attacks made in Parliament on the Local Select Vestries, which were confounded with those established by the 59 Geo. III.

With respect to the Repeal, one effect of it has been, that several members of the legis lature are induced to propose the adoption of the English Poor Laws, or some modification of them, as a means of ameliorating the condition of the indigent population in Ireland.

The writer not having been there, could not give any opinion in the former edition of his work, on that subject; but certainly the leaning of his mind, from the information he had collected or received, was, that a better form of provision for the poor than that minute division and sub-tenancy of land which

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