by the Justices, (5 Eliz. c. 3.); and commitment in case of refusal, (14 Eliz. c. 5.); and finally, to weekly taxation by the overseers, according to ability, (39 Eliz. c. 3.); which system on this point was confirmed by the 43 Eliz. c. 2.

Whether this very important step in the legis lation on this subject is or is not founded in just principles of natural and divine law, will presently be considered; that it is one which must have taken place in the natural progress of society, is indisputable.

"It hath been generally supposed," says Burn, "that the statute 43 Eliz. established a new plan. And from the known abilities of Cecil and Walsingham, and other great men of that age, arguments have been framed in favour of the excellence of that scheme. But the matter lies still deeper; for that statute was not a sudden unpremeditated project of Queen Elizabeth's ministers, but had been the work of ages before, dictated by necessity and experience."-Burn's History of the Poor Laws, chap. 5, page 104.

The present practice in Scotland, and the French ordonnances of 1536 and 1816 combined, bear a great resemblance to the enactments of the statute of 27th Henry VIII. c. 25, which led to the compulsory parochial assessment in England.

In fact, a law of this kind had been enacted in

Scotland in the sixth Parliament of James VI. act 71, enabling the magistrates of burghs, and subsequently the heritors, ministers, and elders, "to tax and stent the haill inhabitans within the parochins," for the "needful sustentation" of the aged poor and impotent, and to enable them to "live unbeggand." The operation of this law has been retarded by the continuance of prædial servitude in its most exalted form, under the name of clanship, and in its most degraded form* of compulsory attachment to the soil, longer than in England; by the migration of its superfluous population, especially to its more rich neighbour and by licensed mendicity. $

But the two great cities of Edinburgh and Glasgow early adopted the provisions of this T It is not, perhaps, generally known, that some years after the decision of the negro cause in England, the following words in the preamble of an English Act of Parliament were justified by facts:

"Whereas, by the statute law of Scotland, as explained by the Judges of the Courts of Law there, many colliers, and coal-bearers, and salters, are in a state of slavery and bondage, bound to the collieries and salt-works, where they work for life, transferable with the collieries and salt-works, when their original masters have no further use for them........ and whereas the emancipation and setting free the colliers, &c. in Scotland, who are now in a state of servitude, would remove the reproach of allowing such a state of servitude to exist in a free country." -15 Geo. III. c. 28. See also Pennant's Tour in Scotland, ed. 1766, vol. ii. page 203. See Monthly Review, N. S. vol. xii. page 155; an extract from Buchanan's Travels in the Western Hebrides, relative to the " Scallag."

law; and it is rapidly gaining ground, notwithstanding the unwillingness of the Scottish people, and the remonstrances of the Scottish publicists and politicians.

The difference between the enactments of the English and Scottish laws is indeed very small, but between their administrations it is still very considerable. The ancient discipline of the Scottish ecclesiastical establishment enforced more by manners than by laws an equal system of assessment. But circumstances have arisen which have weakened the connection between the Kirk Session and the congregation; and a laborious writer on the subject of the Poor Laws in that country*, with natural regret for the existence of those circumstances, is forced to acknowledge that the compulsory assessment is now called for there by "Necessity and General Expediency.""If (says a sagacious observer) the love of many wax cold; if the rich withdraw from religious worship and neglect good works; if absent proprietors do nothing for the poor on their estates; if the humane be burthened above what they are able to bear; if the poor be tempted, by their increasing number and pressing wants and failure of other sources, to put forth their hands and

Historical Dissertations on the Law and Practice of Great Britain, and particularly of Scotland, with regard to the Poor, &c. by the Rev. Robert Burns: 1819. page 109.

steal,-a legal provision seems then to be expedient; it seems then to be equal and right that the landholders who will not give to the poor be compelled to give*.

The process by which the population of the Highlands has been, without diminishing their numbers, transferred from the country to the towns, and the relief of indigence from the feudal lord to the public at large, has passed under observation within the memory of man†.

It is not improbable, that the dissolution of the feudal system in the Lowlands, which took place about the middle and end of the seventeenth century, occasioned that inundation of beggary noticed by Fletcher of Saltoun. As emigration did not assist in the alleviation of this great revolution, as it has since done with respect to the Highlands, there can be no doubt but it produced much wretchedness, and for which the readiest remedy seems to be licensed mendicity.

But the public establishments in France, so far from repressing, have encouraged mendicity. The system of domiciliary relief, although adapted for cities and large towns, has not reached or alleviated the wants of the rural population. To

Dr. Charter's Sermons, quoted by Burns, p. 110.

+ Selkirk on Emigration.

tree?

What modern reader is unacquainted with Edie Ochil-
See "The Antiquary."

their wants, the only remedy as yet afforded is licensed mendicity; but so late as the 26th of December 1821, it appears that the abuses of this particular mode of relieving indigence had been acknowledged by, and had attracted the attention of its legislature*.

There must have been something in the state of general society in Europe which called forth, from the cotemporary and rival monarchs who reigned in the most civilized parts of Europe, enactments similar in their tendency, and almost at the same period. Among various edicts and ordonnances published by the Emperor Charles V. at Brussels in 1531, there are a system of regulations which contain provisions for the main

Chamber of Deputies, Dec. 26.-The Count de Bernis, the Reporter of the Committee of Petitions, called the attention of the Chamber to one, which prayed for a tax of the tenth part of a franc on landed and personal property, for the relief of the poor who were unable to gain their livelihood by labour. He stated that the Committee had ordered him to move the order of the day on this petition.

"M. Duhamel, in seconding the motion for the rejection of this petition, observed, that experience had already shown the evil of such a tax in England: it had led to the production of vagrancy and crime. It ought to be rejected immediately. He lamented the alarming increase of beggars throughout France; and proposed that beggars should be registered, and that the licence (or certificate) of begging should not be granted with such facility as at present."-(Courier, Dec. 31, 1821.)

"Nous avons couru en France, en 1818, le risque de voir la taxe des pauvres s'etablir parmi nous, sous un autre nom et une autre forme."-De Gerando, Visiteur du Pauvre, page 135.