Ibid.

and manner as aforesaid, and also summons for the party to be removed, and for witnesses; and such court, upon such complaint, shall proceed to hear, determine, adjudge, and grant warrant and execution, in the same manner as in cases coming before them by appeal; and in all their adjudications in the premises, they shall state the facts upon which their judgments are founded, to the end that error therein, if any, may be corrected by writ of error, in the supreme judicial court to which either party aggrieved shall be entitled, if purchased within a year, but not otherwise.

Depositions may be used before the justice as well as court of common pleas, on the trial of such complaint, when taken legally and for legal cause. And when expenses for support of a pauper are prayed for in such complaint, the same complaint may be proceeded upon to judgment, so far as respects his settlement, and such expenses; the decease of the pauper pending the complaint notwithstanding.

X. Of the writ of error for reversal of the judgment of the common pleas, and proceedings thereupon.

Either party aggrieved at the judgment of the common pleas, is entitled to a writ of error, if purchased within a year; and upon which, if judgment be reversed, such judgment shall be given, as ought to have been given below, and the plaintiffs in error shall be restored to all they lost by such erroneous judgment, with costs; but if the judgment be affirmed, the defendants shall re

cover costs.

It has already been observed that the common pleas shall state the facts on which their judgments are founded, to the end, that error therein, if any there be, may be corrected; the statute further provides, that the supreme court may require of judicial court may send to the said courts of common pleas, and require them to state other facts, when it shall

The supreme judicial

the common pleas a more ample and explicit statement of

facts, when such is

necessary.

appear by suggestion, or otherwise, that some material

ones were omitted in the statement aforesaid, or to explain such as do not appear to the court to be clearly stated; unless a new statement be agreed to, by the parties.

XI. In what county pauper causes, brought by certain towns, must be prosecuted.

All complaints and suits for removal of paupers, or recovery of expenses for their support, to be made and prosecuted by the town of Boston, in the county of Suffolk, shall be made and prosecuted either in the county of Middlesex or Norfolk; and all suits and complaints to be made and prosecuted by the town of Sherburne, in the county of Nantucket, or by any town in the county of Duke's County, shall be made and prosecuted either in the county of Bristol or Barnstable.

XII. Of notice by the overseers of the complainant town, to the overseers of the town where the pauper is supposed to have his legal settlement; and in what cases such notice shall preclude the respondent town from contesting the question of settlement.

Ibid.

Ibid. s. 12.

Notice to the over

The said overseers may in all cases, if they judge it expedient, previous to any application to any justice of the peace, or court of common pleas, send a written no- seers. tification, stating the facts relating to any person actually become chargeable to their town or district, to one or more of the overseers of the place, where his settlement is supposed to be, and requesting them to remove him, which they will have power to do, by a written order directed to any particular person by name; who is authorized and required to obey the same; and if such removal is not effected, nor objected to by them in writing, after the removal of the such notice, to be delivered in writing, within two months after such notice to the overseers of the town or district, requesting such removal, or to some one of them, then such overseers may remove such person by land or water,

Proceedings in case

pauper is not effected, or objected to by the town notified.

. 8. 15

as is most convenient, by a written order directed to, and to be served by any person, who shall be particularly mentioned in such order, to said place of his supposed settlement; the overseers whereof shall be obliged to receive and provide for him, and their town or district shall be liable for the expenses of his support and removal, to be recovered by action, as aforesaid, by the town or district incurring the same; and shall be barred from contesting the question of settlement with the plaintiffs in such action.(3)

XIII. Penalty for bringing and leaving a pauper in any town, wherein he has not a legal settlement; and liability of a pauper who, after lawful removal, returns to the place from whence he was removed.

If any person shall bring and leave any poor and indigent person, in any town or district in this commonwealth, wherein such pauper is not lawfully settled, knowing him to be poor and indigent, he shall forfeit and pay the sum of twenty pounds for every such offence, to be sued for and recovered by, and to the use of such town or district, by action of debt, in any court proper to try the same.

So if any person lawfully removed, agreeable to the act, to the place of his lawful settlement within this commonwealth, shall voluntarily return to the town or district from which he was removed without their consent,

(3) One manifest object of this provision, in the statute, is to prevent the expense of a law suit, by enabling the overseers of the poor to remove the pauper themselves. It therefore authorizes them to give notice, that the pauper has become chargeable, and to request his removal by the overseers of the poor of the town in which his settlement is supposed to be. If they do not, within two months after receiving such notice and request, either remove him themselves, or object to his being removed to their town, the law considers their silence as an acknowledgment that his legal settlement is there, and accordingly authorizes his removal by the overseers who gave the notice.

Per Sedgwick J. in Topsham v. Harpswell, 1 Mass, Rep. 523.

he shall be deemed a vagabond, and upon due conviction thereof, before any justice of the peace in the same county, may be sent to the house of correction.

XIV. Of the evidence which must accompany accounts exhibited for the support of the poor of the commonwealth.

By statute it is enacted, that the selectmen or overseers of the poor, in the several towns and districts within this commonwealth, when they shall make application to the general court for payment of any expenses, which may have accrued for supporting any poor person, shall be required to make and exhibit a certificate, setting forth the place from whence such person came, the time of his or her coming into this commonwealth, and where he or she shall have resided subsequent to his or her coming into the same; and that he or she has not gained a settlement în any town or district within the commonwealth, in any of the ways pointed out in an act passed February eleventh, in the year of our Lord seventeen hundred and ninety-four, specifying what shall constitute a legal settlement: and also, that he or she has no kindred within the commonwealth, by law obliged to support him or her. And in case such person came into this commonwealth before the tenth day of April, seventeen hundred and sixty-six, whether he or she was warned according to law, to depart from the town or district, wherein he or she resided. And if such application be for payment of expenses incurred for the support o a woman, who shall have married a person not an inhabitant of this commonwealth, or for the child of such woman; then the selectmen or overseers, shall be required to certify, that such woman or child has no legal settlement in any place in this commonwealth, according to the existing laws for determining questions of habitancy; in all which certificates, the said selectmen or overseers shall certify, that they make the same on the best evidence they can obtain.

Stat. 1798, c. 64.

TITLE CXIV:

4 Bl. Com. 137.

Ibid.

Ibid.

PERJURY.

PERJURY, at common law, is where a lawful oath is administered in some judicial proceeding, to a person who swears wilfully, absolutely, and falsely, in a matter material to the issue, or point in question.

Subornation of perjury is the offence of procuring another to take such a false oath, as constitutes perjury in the principal.

1. The common law takes no notice of any perjury, but such as is committed in some court of justice, having power to administer an oath; or before some magistrate, or proper officer, invested with a similar authority, in some proceeding relative to a civil suit, or criminal prosecution. To the latter part of this rule of the common law, our statutes have made exceptions. Thus, a creditor may be liable for perjury, by reason of a false aud corStat. 1789, c. 50, s. 2, rupt oath or affirmation, before commissioners of an insolvent estate. It is enacted, that if any person, who shall take such oath or affirmation, having been duly administered, and shall thereupon wilfully, and corruptly, make any false answer to any question, material for the determination of the claim, in proof of which such oath or affirmation shall have been taken, and shall thereof be duly convicted, shall be adjudged guilty of the crime of perjury; and shall be liable to any and all the pains and penalties, which are, or shall be, by law inflicted, for the punishment of such crime.

Stat. 1787, c. 20, s. 3. and 1790, c. 42, s. 3.

A person may also be liable for this crime, who swears or affirms falsely and corruptly in the poor debtors' oath; and this, whether he be committed for the non-payment