Paupers absconding with clothes, the property of the guardians, may also be imprisoned.

We have also seen (see ante, Chapter XXVII.) that the justices of the peace have the power to visit and inspect workhouses. But in addition to this, it is directed by the rules and orders of the Poor Law board, that the guardians shall appoint one or more visiting committees from their own body; and each of such committees shall carefully examine the work- ? house or workhouses of the union, once in every week at the least; inspect the last reports of the chaplain and medical officer; examine the stores; afford, so far as is practicable, to the inmates an opportunity of making any complaints, and investigate any complaints that may be made to them.

The guardians are, once at least in every year, and as often as may be necessary for cleanliness, to cause all the rooms, wards, offices, and privies belonging to the workhouse to be limewashed. And they are to cause the workhouse, and all its furniture and appurtenances, to be kept in good and substantial repair; and, from time to time, to remedy without delay any such defect in the repair of the house, its drainage, warmth, or ventilation, or in the furniture or fixtures thereof, as may tend to injure the health of the in

mates.

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CHAPTER XXXIV.

OF SETTLEMENT AND REMOVAL.

Part I.-Settlements.

"A SETTLEMENT is the right acquired in any one of the modes pointed out by the poor laws to become a recipient of the benefit of those laws in that parish or place which provides for its own poor, where the right has been last acquired."* Until the year 1865, the place to which a pauper was chargeable, and in which he had a right to relief, was the parish where he had gained his settlement in the manner we shall presently proceed to explain. In that year, however, an act (28 & 29 Vict. c. 79) was passed, which enlarged the area of chargeability from the parish to the union. Although a pauper is still, in strictness, settled in a particular parish, the cost of his relief or maintenance is borne by the union, upon the common fund of which it is imposed, as we have already seen. For most practical purposes, therefore, he may be said to be settled in a union; and, as we shall presently see, he can only be removed from the union where he resides when he becomes chargeable, when the parish of his settlement is in some other union. He is, then, removed from union to union, and not, as before the year 1865, from parish to parish.

2. By

A settlement is acquired-1. By birth. parentage. 3. By marriage. 4. By apprenticeship. 5. By renting a tenement. 6. By payment of rates.

Steer's Parish Law, by Hodgson.

7. By an estate. 8. By residence in a parish for three years.

1. By birth.-Every person is primâ facie entitled to a settlement in the place where he is born. But this he only retains until he is proved to have another, derived from his parents, or acquires one for himself in any of the modes we shall presently describe. Illegitimate children born before the 14th August, 1834, indeed, were not entitled to derive a settlement from their parents. But by the New Poor Law Act, those born after that date follow the settlement of their mother until they are sixteen years of age. And by 39 & 40 Vict. c. 61, s. 35, an illegitimate child retains its mother's settlement until it acquires one of its own.

2. By parentage.-Every child born in wedlock takes the settlement of its father or its widowed mother, as the case may be, and follows that settlement until the age of sixteen. Whatever settlement the child then has it retains until it acquires one for itself. If it does not acquire a settlement for itself, or if a female does not derive a settlement from her husband, and it cannot be shown what settlement such child or female derived from the parent without inquiring into the derivative settlement of such parent (i.e. any settlement by parentage or marriage), such child or female is deemed to be settled in the parish in which he or she was born.

* If the mother marries again, her children will not take the settlement of the second husband. They will retain the last settlement which the mother had as a "widow," until they acquire one for themselves.

3. By marriage.—The following are the rules gencrally applicable to settlements by marriage:-1. A woman marrying a man with a known settlement shall follow it, even whether she lived there with him or not. 2. A wife cannot gain a new settlement for her. self during coverture, or complete one which her husband did not live long enough to obtain. 3. A woman marrying a man without a known settlement retains her maiden settlement.

4. By apprenticeship.-This settlement is created by the 3 & 4 William and Mary, c. 11, s. 8, which enacts "if any person shall be bound an apprentice by indenture, and inhabit in any town or parish, such binding and inhabiting shall be adjudged a good settlement."

A child cannot be bound apprentice under the age of seven. All indentures apprenticing a child to a chimney-sweeper under the age of ten years are void; and we have already seen that no child can be bound apprentice by parish officers till the age of nine.

A good settlement may be gained by apprenticeship to almost any occupation; thus this privilege was held to be obtained in one case where a female was bound to the wife of a day labourer to learn the art of a housewife. There is, indeed, one exception to this:no settlement can now be acquired by apprenticeship to the sea service, or to any householder exercising the trade of the seas as a fisherman or otherwise.

The contract must, to give a settlement, be one of apprenticeship. No settlement will be given by one of mere hiring and service. The distinction between the two may be thus stated:-If the contract has for

U

its object the instruction of the party who is to learn, it is a contract of apprenticeship; but if the principal object be a service to be performed to the master, it is a hiring and service, although the master is also to teach and the servant to learn some particular art or trade.

The binding of an apprentice must take place by deed duly stamped, &c. But no technical expressions are essential to its validity, provided the parties show clearly that they intend to create the relation of master and apprentice.

Something more than mere apprenticeship is, however, necessary to confer a settlement. The apprentice must, during the term for which he is bound, inhabit some parish for forty days, under the indenture, i.e. in the character of an apprentice, and in some way or other in furtherance of the objects of the apprenticeship. The inhabitancy is where the apprentice sleeps, and the settlement is gained there, although the service may be in another parish. The forty days need not be consecutive. But when the apprentice resides alternately in two parishes, the settlement is gained where he lodges for the last forty days of the term. And when it is said that the inhabitancy is where the apprentice sleeps, this must be understood of a place where he sleeps under the indenture, or by the direction of his master. If he be allowed, as a matter of indulgence, to sleep in another parish than that in which his service takes place, he will acquire no settlement in the former.

Service with a third party during the term of apprenticeship is sufficient, if it be with the master's