And here we may remark how frequently one evil brings others in its train; and, therefore, how important it is to keep in the simple track of justice. The real cause of the introduction of the allowance system into England (joined with the ignorance of those who originated it) was the violent change in the value of money which took place about forty years ago; and later changes, of equal or perhaps greater violence, have done much towards extending the use of this system. At the time in question (1795), money was rapidly falling in value,-in other words, prices were rising. Now, it unfortunately happens that wages, which, like everything else, ought to rise and fall with the value of money, change very slowly either in one way or the other. Thus, in the time we are speaking of, bread and meat were getting dearer faster than wages were rising, so that the labouring man was in great distress; and this it was, probably, that induced the Berkshire magistrates to attempt to regulate wages: in doing which they planted a deadly weed which has since spread over a great part of the country. Again, the more recent changes in the value of money have, by greatly raising the farmer's rent, &c., thrown him in many cases into great difficulties; and his distress at length reaching the labourer, new motives have offered themselves to the unreflecting for extending the allowance system.

In justice, however, to those who have either introduced or propagated the allowance system, it must not be forgotten that a great deal of the blame lies with the country at large, in not providing an efficient system of police to protect life and property from the turbulent and lawless. Many of those who have the administration of the poor-laws are fully aware of the dreadful evils of the allowance system; they see that, in many places, it is hurrying both themselves and the labourers to ruin; but it requires no ordinary courage and firmness to take a step which would, in many cases, put their property and lives in peril.

The following is the pleasing picture of a parish redeemed from the state of degradation into which the allowance system had reduced it. It is taken from Mr. Cowell's Report, p. 388. The parish is that of Bingham, Nottinghamshire; and the gentleman to whom the honour of the reform is due, is the Rev. Mr. Lowe, incumbent of the parish. Mr. Lowe began the good work in the year 1818. The year before, the poor-rates were 1200l., the population being 1500. An immediate effect was produced on the amount of the rates, as is shown by the following table:£

Such was the change in the cost of the poor; and we have no doubt that, if a scale could be drawn out, showing the real comfort and happiness of the inhabitants generally, it would be found that those advanced quite as rapidly as the poor-rates fell off. The present amount of the rates is 4501, The population of Bingham has, however, increased somewhat; and, of course, Bingham cannot escape the causes of agricultural distress, beyond the reach of local reforms.

"The Rev. Mr. Lowe became the incumbent of this parish in the year 1814; he is a magistrate, and resides on his living. He found it in a terrible state. In the year 1817 there were more than forty inmates in the workhouse; seventy-eight receiving constant weekly pay out of it; and, for the twelve weeks ending the 27th of June that year, I [Mr. Cowell] counted the number of roundsmen in the parish books, and found it amount to 103.

consent to receive it who could possibly do without it; while at the same time it should come in the shape of comfort and consolation to those whom every benevolent man would wish to succour the old, infirm, idiots, and cripples. For this purpose, he placed in the workhouse a steady, cool-tempered man, who was procured from a distance, and was not known in the parish, as master, refused all relief in kind or money, and sent every applicant and his family at once into the workhouse. The fare is meat three times a week, soup twice, pudding once, milk porridge five times.

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Surely no man who says that he cannot maintain himself, wife, and children, by the sweat of his brow-who declares that he is starving-who applies for charity—has a right to complain of being placed in a clean and comfortable house, of having a good bed to sleep on, and such fare every day as I have described above; and had Mr. Lowe stopped here, matters would not have been much mended. But the applicant who entered the workhouse, on the plea that he was starving for want of work, was taken at his word, and told that these luxuries and benefits could only be given by the parish against work, and in addition, that a certain regular routine was established, to which all the inmates must conform. The man goes to one side of the house, the wife to the other, and the children into the school-room. Separation is steadily enforced. Their own clothes are taken off, and the uniform of the workhouse put on. No beer, tobacco, or snuff is allowed. Regular hours kept, or meals forfeited. Every one must appear in a state of personal cleanliness. No access to bed-rooms during the day. No communication with friends out of doors. Breaking stones in the yard by the grate [piece], as large a quantity required, every day as an able-bodied labourer is enabled to break.

"What is there in all this of which an applicant for a portion of the property of others, on the ground that he is starving, has any right to complain? He has a better house over his head, better clothes on his back, better and more palatable food to eat, better medical advice, than nine-tenths of the peasantry of Germany, France, Switzerland, and Italy, and he is not required to do harder work. But the monotony, the restraint, the want of stimulants, the regularity of hours, are irksome to the pretended pauper. He bethinks himself of liberty and work, and work he will find, if there is a job undone in the parish or neighbourhood within a day's walk. No man stood this discipline for three weeks. After a struggle which lasted a few months, the paupers of Bingham gave the matter up. The inmates of the workhouse dropped from forty-five to twelve, who were all either old, idiots, or infirm, and to whom a workhouse is really a place of comfort. The number of persons relieved out of the workhouse dropped from seventy-eight to twenty-seven. The weekly pay from 67. to 1. 16s. to pensioners, all of whom are old and blind, or crippled. These are permitted to live with their relations, as such instances of relieving out of the workhouse produce no mischief.

"Wages rose to twelve shillings a week, winter and summer, all the year through; the labourer husbanded his resources, took a pride and pleasure in his cottage, and resumed his rank in the scale of moral being.

The effect of this system is far more important in a moral point of view, than in a pecuniary or an economical one. The conduct and habits of the population of Bingham, according to the representations of Mr. Lowe and Deane, and by the consent of the neighbourhood, are now as different from what they were fifteen years ago, as can be conceived; no crimes, no misdeeds, no disturbances."

The example set by Mr. Lowe, in the reform of Bingham, has been followed in other places with equal success; and reforms, on a more extensive scale, have, in the course of the last few years, been effected in Liverpool, Birmingham, Derby, Oldham, and other large towns. In some of these (as we shall show when considering the effects of superior parochial government), the cost of the poor has been greatly reduced, even with an increasing population; and this reduction of the burthen to the rate-payers has been brought about without any sacrifice of the real interests of the poor

Bastardy. The provision for bastard children forms, to a certain extent, a branch of the allowance system. We have already given some explanation of the state of the law of bastardy. The burthen of the support of a bastard child, like that of any other child, falls by law on the parentsthe parish being required to provide for the child only in case of extreme indigence on the part of the parents; the

singstoke, and also of the road from hence to Shillingford, I can state, from my observation of the several parishes (nineteen in number) through which these roads pass, that very considerable labour might be found, under good direction, in improving their private roads. This is an instance of the sort of work which might frequently be found for paupers. In some of the parishes the roads are kept in very good order, but this is mere accident; whilst in the immediately adjoining parishes more money will be expended, and the roads will, nevertheless, be in so bad a state, that the parish is indictable for them,"

Again, at page 316, Mr, Mott gives the following evidence:

"From the statements of medical men in the metropolis, and also of such persons as Dr. Kay of Manchester, it appears that, in consequence of the want of drainage of certain districts, and the crowded and dirty state of the habitations, there are some neighbourhoods from which disease is never absent. Have you observed similar effects in the parishes with which you are acquainted?'-'I have observed it, not only in Lambeth, but in all crowded neighbourhoods; and, seeing how large a source of unavoidable pauperism this is, I have long regretted that the proprietors of these small houses were not compelled to keep them in a proper state. An independent labourer may be industrious and provident, and yet both he and his family may be subjected to a fever, or other disease, and thrown upon the parish, in consequence of want of drainage, and filth, and other causes, which he has no means of removing.'

"So that, looking merely to the poor-rates, it would be good economy to pay attention to drainage and the enforcement of sanatory regulations ?'-'I think so; and that it would be attended with great benefit. Some neighbourhoods are so constantly the seats of particular diseases, and sources of pauperism from that cause, that if assistant-overseers, and others accustomed to visit the abodes of the poor, were asked for cases of those diseases, they could direct you to particular places where you would almost be sure to find the disease at work, I remember that, one winter, when the weather was very severe, the beadles of Newington parish were directed to pay particular attention to the sick out-door poor. They went at once to some courts in Kent Street, as a matter of course, without making any inquiry (just as a gamekeeper would go to a well-stocked preserve); and returned with two coach-loads full of most deplorable objects, the victims of frightful disease.'

NECESSITY OF AN IMPROVED AND UNIFORM SYSTEM IN

THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE POOR-LAWS.

The remaining defects in the English poor-laws (we speak of the principal ones only) can perhaps be best considered under the present head,

We will now inquire what the amount of poor-rates is in some parishes where the bad management, generally found in small parishes, is not checked by causes like those operating in the north. In Berkshire, the rates in the year 1831 were 15s. 2d. a head; in Wiltshire, 16s. 7d,; and in Sussex, 198. 5d.; being more than four times the proportion of poor-rates to population in Lancashire, and nearly eight times what it is at the town of Oldham.

With these general facts to start with, we may now go on to consider in what the advantages of large parishes consist. In the first place, a great deal of trouble and vexation is saved in determining settlements. In a large parish, a man may generally go where his labour is wanted, and may change his abode many times without making any alteration in his settlement, or giving room for any dispute concerning it; but in the ridiculously small parishes to be found in some parts of the country, containing only a few hundred acres of land, a labourer can scarcely take a hop, stride, and jump, without changing his parish, or at least getting on debateable ground.

England and Wales are at present chopped up into as many as 10,000 distinct parishes; and the city of London, within the walls, containing a population of not more than 55,000, is divided into ninety-six separate parishes.

If the 10,000 parishes, into which the country is divided, were incorporated into 500, there would still be much room for further union at a future time. Still, however, an important step would be taken, and much good would result. If such new divisions of the country were made, advantage should be taken of the opportunity of forming districts or parishes on really good principles of union. We would submit the following for consideration, each to be abided by as far as a general attention to all will admit:-Equality of population and wealth-similarity of interests and occupations among the inhabitants-facility of intercourse and convenience of boundary. A number of parishes formed on these principles might together make a county, and be placed under a municipal government,

With a good system of management, such as is at the command of large bodies acting in unison, the advantages resulting from the junction of parishes would probably be so great that, in a few years, there would be a general inclination to join yet further. In this case we should venture to recommend that the parishes should still remain separate, as far as regards the amount of poor-levies required from them, but that they should be united in all that relates to the expenditure of the levies. The question how much each pardecided by the municipal government; and should be deticular parish should be required to contribute, might be termined on a consideration of the peculiar circumstances of the parish, and how far the inhabitants had exerted themselves to remove, by education or otherwise, the causes of pauperism.

In the year 1831, the cost of the poor of Liverpool was only 48. 34d. per head of the population; that is to say, every person on an average was called upon for only 4s. 3 d. of poor-rates. In Oldham the rates were yet lower, being only 2s. 3d, each individual. Taking the whole county of Lancaster, with its great towns and throngs of inhabitants, the poor-rates amounted to not more than 4s. 4 d. per head of the population, which is considerably less than in any other county in the whole of England and Wales. This low rate is most nearly approached by the counties in the extreme north of the country. We are not aware that parishes are at all larger there than elsewhere; the inhabitants, however, have in their old-established customs many securities against pauperism which do not exist in other parts of the country. We wish we had room to give a detailed account of their mode of life; for the present we must content ourselves with referring such of our readers as have access to the document, to the very interesting evidence of Mr. Grey given in the Report of the Lords' Committee of 1831,

"Can you give any instances within your own knowledge of the operation of the law of settlement?'-'I was requested by Colonel Bogson, Kesgrove House, to furnish him with a farming bailiff. I found a man in all respects qualified for his situation; he was working at 9s, a week in the parish where I lived. The man was not encumbered by a family, and he thankfully accepted my offer: the situation was, in point of emolument, and comfort, and station, a considerable advance; his advantages would have been doubled. In about a week he altered his mind, and declined the situation, in consequence, as I understood, of his fearing to remove from what was considered a good parish to a bad one, the parish to which it was proposed to remove him being connected with a hundred house, in which there was more strict management.-I was requested by a poor man, whom I respected, to find a situation for his son, in London; the son was a strong young man, working at that time at about 8s. a week. I eventually succeeded in getting him a good situation of one guinea per week, in London, where his labour would have been much less than it was in the country; but when the period arrived at which he was expected in London, he was not forthcoming. It appeared he had altered his mind, and determined not to take the place; as I understood, his reason for refusing to accept it arose from a reluctance to endanger his settlement in his parish. Such are the instances which are continually presented to my observation, with respect to the operation of the present system of settlement,'

"The general effect of particular modes of living and gradation of dietaries, may be best proved by the declarations and conduct of those who have tried them all.

"In consequence of the inquiries I have made on this subject, many of the inmates of the workhouses have been questioned as to their experience. Mr. Hewitt, the master of the workhouse of St. Andrew's, Holborn, and St. George the Martyr, made separate and close inquiries of several of the paupers in that house, who had been in various prisons and workhouses, and on board the hulks. He has furnished me with several dietaries made up from the statements of the paupers, and I find that they correspond very accurately with the dietaries set forth in the official returns. From the statements and admissions of the paupers, it appeared that they usually knew to an ounce the dietaries of the metropolitan prisons, and the hulks, and of many of the workhouses, of which some one amongst them had made trial. One of the paupers, named James Philby, a stout able-bodied man, (with the exception that he had a club foot,) had been fifteen times in the House of Correction for various misdemeanours, He also acknowledged that he had received relief from the parishes of St. James, Clerkenwell; Chelsea; Bethnal Green; St. Giles, Bloomsbury; St. Dunstan, Fleet Street; St. Andrew, Holborn, above bars; the Liberty of the Rolls; Whitechapel; St. Mary, Newington; St. Andrew, Saffron Hill; Kensington; and St. George, Southwark. He had resided in all these workhouses; he had lived in one workhouse whilst he managed to get relief as an out-door pauper from others, and that too during the same week, He had also received sets up,' or grants of stated sums for stated periods, from the several parishes. He admitted that he had, at times, varied his occupation by stealing a little. One instance was mentioned, where, after he had been liberated from an imprisonment for

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"A proprietor possessing nearly the whole of a parish at some distance from Ely, has, we are told, hired a farm in Ely, which he manages by a bailiff; he sends his own parishioners to work on it. To these persons his bailiff gives settlements in Ely, by hiring; and at the end of the year they are turned off upon Trinity parish in Ely, and their places supplied by a fresh immigration from the mother parish. The proprietor may have had very different motives from those attributed to him by our examinants; and this circumstance is not mentioned for the purpose of casting any reflection on him, (we do not know his name, nor what account of the transaction he himself might give,) but in order to point out the temptations which settlement by hiring and service' throws in the way of persons even of station and education. In the case of Great Shelford, narrated above, are not the landowners, who daily see their property slowly but surely passing away from them, under a strong temptation to save themselves from ruin by hiring a couple of farms for seven years, in two distinct parishes, and bribing their supernumerary families to take service there? And this is clearly possible by the existing law."-Report of Poor-Law Commissioners, p. 387.

From all that has been brought forward, it appears that the evils connected with the question of settlements are very great, and that the remedies to be applied are, 1st, Enlargement of parishes. 2d, The introduction of a uniform system throughout the country, so that a pauper may receive exactly the same treatment in one parish as in another. 3d, The reduction of the cost of a pauper to the least possible amount, as well by attention to strict economy as by employing the pauper in useful labour. In addition to these reforms it would be well to adopt some more simple law of settlement than the present one. In Scotland every person belongs to that parish in which he has dwelt during the greater part of the previous three years; and this law of settlement appears to work tolerably well-at any rate very much better than the English law; for the amount of litigation in Scotland on the subject of settlement is trifling compared with the amount in England.

Frauds by Paupers.-These would be much checked by an enlargement of parishes, and the introduction of a general and uniform system of administration. We have already, in considering the way in which relief should be afforded,

as a favour, offered to let him have his own coat back a bargain. This pauper, after having received relief fraudulently from St. George's parish, Southwark, during twelve years, was prosecuted by them, and his sentence was four months' imprisonment. This sentence, according to his own statement, transferred him from the workhouse-where, as an inmate on a low diet, the allowance was only 134 oz. of food weekly-to a place where the allowance was 230 oz. From the statements of these persons, it appeared that the average dietaries of the workhouses in the metropolis was about 170 oz. of solid food, whilst in prison the dietaries were from 200 oz. to 280 oz. of solid food weekly. They admitted that the labour in the prisons was very often little more than mere exercise; that they were always very kindly treated; but that, as they lived well enough in the workhouse, they preferred it, because they had more liberty there, and could get better society when they were out. As to regular work,' Philby said that he could at all times travel to any part of the country, and live better on the road than he could possibly do by hard labour."

Superior Economy of large Parishes.--Under other heads we have had occasion to bring forward some facts in support of the opinion that the maintenance of the poor in a large parish can be managed more economically than in a small one. The following additional evidence has been given by Mr. Charles Mott, the contractor for the poor of Lambeth parish :

"The city of London within the walls comprehends a population of 55,000, whose poor are relieved and managed in ninety-six parishes. Lambeth comprehends a population of 87,000, and the administration of relief to the poor is managed by one establishment, and the money raised for the purpose is collected on one rate.-What do you consider would be the effect of the subdivision of Lambeth into ninetysix independent parishes, each managing the poor independently of the rest, or each exercising the right of assent or dissent from any combined management in the same way as each parish belonging to the incorporated hundreds ?The chief effects which appear to me to be likely to ensue, are, that we should have ninety-six imperfect establishments instead of one; ninety-six sources of peculation instead of one; ninety-six sets of officers to be imposed upon by paupers instead of one set; ninety-six sources of litigation and of expense for removals and disputed settlements instead of one; and ninety-six modes of rating instead of one."