became " a great poor-house;" where the sovereign people taxed the possessors of property, not only for their support, but for their amusements. The obligation of the Government of ancient Rome to provide "Bread and Sports," "Panem et Circenses," is well known ; and some traces of both are to be found in those European states, where the Government not only takes upon itself the difficult task of providing the general necessaries of life, particularly corn at a low price, for the supply of its capital cities*; but also maintains the performers, and admits the people to theatrical exhibitions, at a price inferior to that which defrays the actual expenses.

The poor-laws are said to have a tendency to degrade the people ;-observation does not warrant this conclusion. Our popular tumults have not been attended with cruelty; a leading distinction between the insurrections of free men, and the rebellion of slaves. Mr. Malthus relied

* This practice, which commenced at Paris in the great famine of 1661, has been an integral part of its police ever since that time; never omitted in the greatest distresses of the State, during the regal, revolutionary, and imperial governments. Yet the system was remonstrated against at an early period.— See the Eloge of M. Turgot the elder, in the Mémoires de l'Academie des Belles Lettres.

The same practice as to the provision of corn takes place in Turkey. See Browne's papers in Walpole's Memoirs relating to European and Asiatic Turkey, part 2. p. 152.

+ See an observation of Earl Charlemont in Hardy's Life

very strongly on the effect of them to encourage an excessive population. But in his latest edition he seems to distrust the soundness of this opinion, by the evidence of facts disclosed in the Population Returns. And the instances of Spain and Ireland, where there are no poor-laws, with an equal, if not greater, increase of population, are almost conclusive against his general argument; and of these instances he was not ignorant*.

The remarks (in the Population Returns) which state the increase of population to have resulted from the operation of the Poor Laws, are too frequent for distinct insertion; they suppose persons to marry with a direct view of thereby obtaining a weekly allowance, or at least on reliance in that kind of resource in time of need. Nor can it be denied but that such an effect seems very naturally to follow from the compulsory nature of the relief afforded to the poor in England; and it is quite certain that whenever employment is scarce, the married man will have a preference, lest he should be constrained to apply to the overseer for gratuitous aid.

"But there is reason to suspect that the Poor Laws are much less conducive to an increase of

of that Nobleman, p. 95; and compare mobism in England with Irish Whiteboyism.

* Vol. iii. p. 196.

population than they are usually stated to be in argument, and in the remarks on the population schedules: because it must be recollected, that although in Scotland there is no Poor Rate, the ratio of increase since 1811 is nearly sixteen per cent upon the resident population; while in England it is no more than eighteen per cent, as computed on the resident population of both countries ;—a small difference, and such as probably would be expected had Poor Rates equally or at all existed in both countries."-Extract from the House of Commons Reporton the Population, 29th August, 1822.

"Almost every proposal (says Dr. Burn*), which hath been made for the reformation of the Poor Laws, hath been tried in former ages, and found ineffectual." This idea would have been better expressed, if he had used the word abolition instead of reformation; as, from the tenor of his work, I think this was his meaning. I will add, that as yet no better plan in lieu of them has been proposed; and that every one hitherto suggested for their final abolition is reducible to an absurdity.

"It has been proposed to fix the whole sum to be raised at its present rate, or any other that might be determined upon; and to make a law, that on no account this sum should be exceeded." * History of the Poor Laws, p. 106.

"In the former editions of his work, Mr. Malthus condemns this plan, as unjust: in his late editions he partly withdraws his dissent, though he retracts none of his objections."-" It is however evident," adds Mr. Courtenay, "that his consent is the result of despair: having long ago in vain proposed remedies much more just, and founded on sounder principles, his deep sense of the increasing evils of the system, and the deference (which he always shows) to the opinions of others, incline him to the adoption of any plan for getting rid of it*"

With respect to the plan itself, I refer my readers to Mr. Courtenay's pamphlet as to the consequences which would follow from the adop tion of it; and I have little doubt that they will come to the same conclusion as he does, that it is neither necessary nor just.

As to the plan proposed by Mr. Malthus, and which he himself seems (as above stated) to give up in despair, namely, "That, after a short notice, no parochial assistance should at any time, or under any circumstances, be afforded to the offspring of any marriages thereafter to be contracted, or to illegitimates thereafter born;" it is commended by Mr. Courtenay, as more just and equitable than the former plan of the pecuniary

* Treatise on the Poor Laws; by T. P. Courtenay, Esq. M. P. p. 21, 23, 26.

maximum; proceeding upon the conviction, that the poor (indigent) have no right to relief, it finally and completely repeals the poor laws." If the theory I have been labouring to establish be just, the soundness of the principle on which this plan is founded may be doubted; and Mr. Courtenay himself comes to the conclusion, that it is not expedient*.

Mr. Sumner has drawn a legitimate inference from the principle of population, in its consequences militating directly against the plan proposed by Mr. Malthus for the abolition of the Poor Laws, which proceeds upon the supposition, that indigence is the effect of guilt. Mr. Sumner first states, "that, with regard to the more crowded commercial countries of Europe, the most advanced we know in point of absolute civilization, we have only to look round us in order to be satisfied whether the people do not increase up to the means of support; i. e. whether those who have no other maintenance than the daily wages of their labour, do not increase till that labour earns barely sufficient to support their families." "The result of such observation cannot fail to be, that, in every department of national industry, there are more claimants for employ than employers; that the demand is for labour rather than for labourers; that there are somewhat more manufacturers, more artificers, * Courtenay, p. 31, 33, 56.