n punishment. The eviction of the working
farmers, the demolition of their dwellings, the depopulation of the
country, were evils of most serious magnitude; and the supplement of
the measures which produced such deplorable results was found in the
permanent establishment of a taxation for the SUPPORT of the POOR. Yet
the nation reeled under the depletion produced by previous mistaken
legislation, and all classes have been injured by the transfer of the
support of the army from the land held by the nobles to the income of
the people.

Side by side, with the measures passed, to prevent the Clearing of the
Land, arose the system of POOR LAWS. Previous to the Reformation the
poor were principally relieved at the religious houses. The destruction
of small farms, and the eviction of such masses of the people, which
commenced in the reign of Henry VII., overpowered the resources of
these establishments; their suppression in the reigns of Henry VIII.
and Elizabeth aggravated the evil. The indiscriminate and wholesale
execution of the poor vagrants by the former monarch only partially
removed the evil, and the statute-book is loaded with acts for the
relief of the destitute poor. The first efforts were collections in the
churches; but voluntary alms proving insufficient, the powers of the
churchwardens were extended, and they were directed and authorized
to assess the parishioners according to their means, and thus arose a
system which, though benevolent in its object, is a slur upon our social
arrangements. Land, the only source of food, is rightly charged with the
support of the destitute. The necessity for such aid arose originally
from their being evicted therefrom. The charge should fall exclusively
upon the rent receivers, and in no case should the tiller of the soil
have to pay this charge either directly or indirectly. It is continued
by the inadequacy of wages, and the improvidence engendered by a social
system which arose out of injustice, and produced its own penalty.

Legislation with regard to the poor commenced contemporaneous with the
laws against the eviction of the small farmers. I have already recited
some of the laws to preserve small holdings; I now pass to the
acts meant to compel landholders to provide for those whom they had
dispossessed. In 1530 the act 22 Henry VIII., cap. 12, was passed; it
recites:

"Whereas in all places through the realm of England, vagabonds and
beggars have of long time increase