OR, A COMPENDIUM OF THE LAWS RELATING TO THE POOR, WITH THE ADJUDGED CASES ON Parochial Settlements, TO THE SEVENTH YEAR OF THE REIGN OF HIS PRESENT MAJESTY COMPILED FROM THE BEST AUTHORITIES. BY WM. ROBINSON, ESQ. LL.D. OF THE MIDDLE TEMPLE, AUTHOR OF THE MAGISTRATE'S POCKET BOOK," "The poor multiply in a rich country, because they do not LONDON: PRINTED FOR CHARLES FREDERICK COCK, 21, FLEET-STREET. 1827. PREFATORY INTRODUCTION. THE many valuable works, which of late years have been published on the subject of the Poor Laws, leave very little if any thing new to be offered on that subject, though so interesting in itself, and so important to the community at large. The Author of this Volume, therefore, by compressing these various laws into a small compass, and presenting them to the reader at one view, has endeavoured to render a reference to all the points relating to the relief and settlement of the poor at once expeditious and satisfactory. It is not his intention to dilate much on this subject, as the whole body of the law, as far as it regards the relief and settlement of the poor, is to be found in the following pages. But as the history of the times, in which these laws were framed, will best illustrate the nature and design of the laws, to which they gave rise, and as the laws themselves offer the best commentary on the history of the times, he has thought proper to introduce the subject by a concise and summary account of the origin and progress of the Poor Laws, from the earliest enactments to the present time. Under the Anglo-Saxon monarchy measures had been adopted for the relief of the indigent. Athelstan, the grandson of the great Alfred and the heir of his virtues, who succeeded to the crown in the year 925, ordained that “ one poor English man should be maintained from the product of every two farms in his domain." And even during the earlier periods of the Norman dynasty, when the feudal system existed in its full vigour, such was the relation between the lord and his vassals, as to preclude the very idea of legal intervention for the poor. As on the one hand they were bound to cultivate his lands, so on the other they constituted a part of his baronial dignity, and engaged his care and protection. Here, then, was no room for either parliamentary regulation or indiscriminate charity. But when the feudal system began to be relaxed by the policy of succeeding kings, who dissolved the tie which bound together the nobles and their vassals, there arose another description of persons, who were neither rich themselves, nor the dependents of those who were. Many of these, by the ever-changing circumstances of the times, were compelled to recur to the benevolence of others from age, or sickness, or other accidental causes. These had no resources but the voluntary donations of the rich. Accordingly we find, that, for a long series of years, the poor were entirely dependent on the casual liberalities which they solicited at the baronial castles, or the more regular donations, which Christian charity afforded them at the gates of the religious Houses. This, however, became a source of incalculable evil; for amongst other bad effects resulting from this indiscriminate charity, it was not, perhaps, one of the least, though frequently esteemed otherwise, that they supported and fed a very numerous and idle poor, who declined all personal labour for their maintenance, as they found an ample sustenance, in what was daily distributed in alms at the gates of the Monasteries. This, however, became a source of continual evil. By the common law, the poor were to be sustained by parsons, rectors of the church, and the parishioners, so that none of them die for |