ward the principle of discrimination, it seems worthy of all possible support. This principle has been intrusted hitherto only to those parishes which have established Select Vestries. It is now proposed to extend it to Churchwardens and Overseers, where there are no Select Vestries; and further, the regard to character is not, as before, to be confined to the person applying for relief, but also to the family. In order to uphold this discriminative relief, it is proposed, that the refusal to relieve an applicant, shall not be overturned but by the decision of at least three Justices. This will prevent the injustice oftentimes done by a single Magistrate, who may be misled by mistaken humanity, or by a motive less venial; and it will still afford ample security to the poor against oppression. The relief certificates, with which they are directed to provide themselves before their complaint can be entertained by the magistrates, are too exclusively, it will be thought by some, for the benefit of the payers.

A very peculiar feature of this Bill is

the proposition, that, whenever it shall appear that any able-bodied person, within certain ages, shall have received parish relief either for himself or family for the months in the year prespace of ceding (except in cases of sickness), or that any male person, within a certain

age, shall have been maintained wholly, or in part, by parish relief for the space of years, it shall be lawful for the Justices, upon application of one of the Overseers, or of two of the parishioners paying a certain assessment, to cause a list of such persons to be made out; and the Justices may direct that they be set down in such numerical order as they shall direct, and such persons shall thereby be declared liable and compellible to serve for their parish in the militias, before any other person liable thereto, without any exception or excuse from poverty or change of residence. Then follows a clause, that the persons inserted in such lists shall, according to the order in which they are set down by the Justices, be required to serve in such militia in behalf of

their parish, without any ballot other than the list returned by the Justices to the Deputy Lieutenants.

The main principle involved in this proposition appears unobjectionable; yet injustice is always to be feared when new crimes are created by statute. The law for more than two centuries has dispensed parish relief without stigmatizing the recipient as an offender, and now it is proposed abruptly to new model, or to give a new character to, the nature of his actions. It affixes a penalty, involving criminality, where there was no penalty before; and however just the distinction may be, those, who have been reared under a mistaken system, have a strong claim to be treated, under the cir cumstances, with tender consideration.clo

Another objection occurs to this proposition. The authority given to Justices to insert the paupers' names in such order as they shall direct, puts into their hands at once a dangerous engine of oppression. However respectable and independent they may be, they are not above the ordinary fallibility of our nature; and it is to be

feared, nay it is palpable, that such a power would sometimes be abused. The poacher would be found generally at the top of the list, and jealousies would necessarily be raised (oftentimes no doubt unfounded),—that the order of the list was made to gratify private purposes. Should this be the case, as may be confidently anticipated, too much sympathy would be awakened on the behalf of the wrongdoers, and they would receive the pity instead of the reprobation of mankind. It is to weaken the administration of the Poor Laws to bring them, though thus slightly, into contact with the Game Laws.

The clause for renewing the badging of the dissolute poor is surely of very suspicious operation. A similar experiment was tried by an Act of William the Third, which remained on the Statute Book for more than a century, and was then repealed. Should it not rather be the object of the politician to elevate, rather than lower, the poor in their own estimation? Are the wicked best reclaimed by publicly branding them with infamy? Our experience

of such a penalty, of which there has been enough among slaves and in early legislation, will scarcely sanction a new experiment with so little novelty in the application. Besides, parochial officers have it in their power already, it is presumed, to mark their paupers by a distinction of dress.

With regard to the employment of the Poor, in which the law can do so little, some additional powers are proposed to be given to raise a rate for any special object, and the Justices are to have the power of ordering paupers to be employed upon the highway or public works, and the power of punishing, if they refuse. This part of the scheme seems rather a provision for a great emergency; and it may be questionable, whether it is politic to burden the Statute Book with communicating further powers for the employment of the poor. The power of withholding relief, if exercised discreetly, will supersede all others; and the penalty of the natural law will be found sufficiently irresistible, without the addition of human punishments.