ight be repealed: that while the present laws
relating to the poor subsist, the compelling parish-officers to grant
certificates to the poor, would in all probability prevent the hardships
they now suffer, in being debarred gaining their livelihood, where
they can do it most usefully to themselves and the public. From
these sensible resolutions, the reader may conceive some idea of the
misconduct that attends the management of the poor in England, as well
as of the grievous burdens entailed upon the people by the present
laws which constitute this branch of the legislature. The committee's
resolves being read at the table, an order was made that they should be
taken into consideration on a certain day, when the order was again
put off, and in the interim the parliament was prorogued. While the
committee deliberated upon this affair, leave was given to prepare a
bill for preventing tenants, under a certain yearly rent, from gaining
settlements in any particular parish, by being there rated in any
land-tax assessment, and paying for the landlord the money so charged.
This order was afterwards discharged; and another bill brought in to
prevent any person from gaining a settlement, by being rated by
virtue of an act of parliament for granting an aid to his majesty by a
land-tax, and paying the same. The bill was accordingly presented,
read, committed, and passed the lower house; but among the lords it
miscarried. It can never be expected that the poor will be managed with
economy and integrity, while the execution of the laws relating to their
maintenance is left in the hands of low tradesmen, who derive private
advantage from supplying them with necessaries, and often favour the
imposition of one another with the most scandalous collusion. This is an
evil which will never be remedied, until persons of independent fortune,
and unblemished integrity, actuated by a spirit of true patriotism,
shall rescue their fellow-citizens from the power of such interested
miscreants, by taking the poor into their own management and protection.
Instead of multiplying laws with respect to the settlement and
management of the poor, which serve only to puzzle and perplex the
parish and peace officers, it would become the sagacity of the
legislature to take some effectual precautions to prevent the increase
of paupers and vagrants, which is become an intolerable nuisance to
the commonwealth. Towards this salutary end, surely nothing would more