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That the administration of this part of the law has been attended with abuses, I am as ready to admit as the most zealous opposers of the law itself can be ; but certainly with less abuses than the other part of it, which will come afterwards under consideration.

The law of settlement brought on a train of evils, because it opened a door to litigation. Yet, admitting the principle, that the poor ought to be supported by the state, the abolishing the law of settlement, which would necessarily throw the general administration of the poor into the hands of Government, would be an evil much greater than the present system of parochial administration. The general law of settlement is now pretty well understood, and the application of it to the particular case is now become comparatively an easy task. But still it would be desirable to simplify it, and it is probable this will be effected. With all its present imperfections, it has a tendency to effect an equalization of the burthen of supporting the poor, which may make up for some of its defects. From the very nature of property, land, which is visible and tangible, must always be more burthened with poor-rates than any other species of property; and would be more so, if the population which is born and bred in the country did not fly to and obtain settlements in towns. In consequence of this, the active pro

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perty of towns takes a larger share of the contribution towards the relief of the poor, than would be the case if the indigent, after their work was done, were to be returned to the places of their birth. Nor do we find that the towns are depopulated in consequence of this pressure of taxation; so far from it, it is in them that building and population seem most to have increased.

Another source of abuse, especially in great towns, has arisen from the description of persons appointed to the office of Overseer. They are very generally inferior tradesmen, who are thrust by the ill-will and jealousy of their neighbours into the office; or they are persons who undertake it in the place of others who are appointed, and act as their deputies. Those of the former description are incompetent from their general habits, and neither over anxious to execute with fidelity, or even with common attention, an office into which they have been forced, or to be careful in the administration of a revenue, to very which their own contribution is generally very small; and those of the latter description are aware of the advantages to be derived, directly or indirectly, from the commission of the grossest acts of peculation. To these cases there are, doubtless, frequent and honourable exceptions: but when these exceptions do occur, the reduction of the rates, and the better administration of

the poor-laws, which generally take place, without any great exertions either of ability or integrity, prove only the excesses of the previous abuse. Unfortunately, the magistrates, by whom these abuses are to be corrected, bring to the decision of questions between the overseers and the poor, feelings which, highly honourable to themselves, are frequently not subject to that discrimination which previous acquaintance with the subject demands and requires; and habits of expense, from their station in life, necessarily formed upon a scale higher than that required for the necessary and even comfortable subsistence of the day labourer: and their interference has in many cases hitherto tended rather to encourage than correct mismanagement and improvidence. But the abuse of their administration does not affect the soundness of the principle on which the poor-laws are founded. The abuses are collateral, and unconnected with it: they may be removed, as we remove an unsound branch, and leave the parent trunk unhurt, vigorous, and flourishing.

Those who argue against the appropriation of the public revenues to the relief of the indigent, contend, that private charity would meet every case; and that the intercourse between the giver and receiver of alms would be attended with more reciprocal satisfaction, than that which now takes place between the administrators and the re

ceivers of a fund, on which the latter have a right to make a demand.

However well disposed to the exercise of private charity, very many have not leisure, and very many have not ability and experience, for the discrimination of those cases, varying from mendicity to poverty, in which real charity consists. The giver and receiver may be too far distant,— the abode of objects of relief may be in the obscure corners of a town or the desolation and solitude of the country, out of the sight and out of the reach of charity. We see, in fact, in most well-judged instances of private almsgiving, that it attaches itself to societies of various descriptions, formed for the relief of different species of indigence. The practice of Scotland, where the legal assessments have not yet universally taken place; and that of France, where no law for them has as yet been enacted,—prove the habit induced by necessity of combining and uniting for charitable purposes.

But the possession of property does not necessarily imply the possession of charity commensurate with the amount of that property; and although the existence of the duty is generally allowed, yet, unless it was equally enforced by legal assessment, the avaricious would escape from the discharge of it*.

* It is curious enough, that an able writer in the Quarterly

Works of public convenience, which benefit the poor as well as the rich, are paid for by equal assessments on property;-and ought not the preservation of the lives of human beings to be entitled to the same claim?

That charity "blesses him that gives and him that takes;" that kindness on one hand, and gratitude on the other, are reciprocal,—I am most ready to allow. But as for that delightful intercourse which is to exist between the givers and receivers, when all the indigent are to be thus relieved by all the wealthy out of their abundance, which some writers have fancied; let those who have seen on the Continent indigence reduced to mendicity decide, whether the intercourse between the overseer and the pauper, which has been the subject of so much pathetic description and declamation, is not infinitely less revolting to the feelings, as being infinitely more discriminative, than that between the beggar and the person from whom insolence and importunity have extorted an unwilling supply of alms.

Those who visited Italy in 1816 and 1817 will want no proof of the justice of this observation. Those who did not, may refer to Mr. Rose's Letters to Mr. Hallam, from the North of Italy: Letter XI.

Review No. 51. should allow the duty on one side, and yet deny the right on the other.

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