the Vagrant Act, passed shortly before the end of Elizabeth's reign.* Lord Coke informs us that, on the making of this last mentioned statute, "and a good space after, whilest justices of peace and other officers were diligent and industrious, there was not a rogue to be seen in any part of England; but when justices and other officers became tepidi, or trepidi, rogues swarmed againe.”† * Above, p. 206. † Lord Coke, Second Institute, p. 729. CHAP. VIII. STATUTE OF CHARLES II. FOR THE REMOVAL OF THE POOR. Così quel fiato gli spiriti mali, Di qua, di là, di giù di su gli mena: Nulla speranza gli conforta mai, Non che di posa, ma di minor pena. — DANTE, So hither, thither, upward, downward driven, To them relief nor settlement is given, Nor hope, that this remove will be the last. THE origin of a great part of those evils which the poor laws have entailed on the country, is to be found in the statute passed about two years after the restoration of Charles II., and in the 14th year of his constructive reign. This statute gave an arbitrary power of removing a poor man from the place of his residence, to what is called the place of his settlement; and thus again adopted a principle which had met with a long trial in the reigns of Edward VI. and Elizabeth, and was finally rejected by the statute under which the poor had now been relieved for more than sixty years. The recital of this statute, passed in 1662, is diffuse in explanation of alleged grounds for its enactment. The number of the poor, throughout England and Wales, is stated to have increased, and to be "very great and exceeding burdensome, being occasioned by reason of some defects in the law concerning the settling of the poor, and for want of a due provision of the regulations of relief and employment in such parishes or places where they are legally settled, which doth enforce many to turn incorrigible rogues, and others to perish for want." This recital involves two historical facts, and one legislatorial conjecture. The two facts are, 1st, That from neglect of the provisions of the statute of Elizabeth, many poor people had been enforced to turn incorrigible rogues, and others to perish for want: 2nd, That the number of the poor had greatly increased. The conjecture is, That the evil described was, in part, due to some "defects in the law concerning the settling of the poor," and, in part only, to the neglect to carry out the statute of Elizabeth. It is highly probable that the whole grievance complained of, arose from the neglect conscientiously and strictly to administer the statute of Elizabeth; and the best remedy would, in all likelihood, have been found, in enforcing the then existing law, and certainly is not found in the statute of 14 Charles II. c. 12. Only a few years ago, we saw, even under the superintendence and control of a Central Board (constantly endeavouring to prevent any gross mal-administration of relief to the poor), that a temporary want of proper vigilance and discrimination in administering that relief, aided by other accidents, very rapidly produced an alarming increase in the number of the vagrant poor. In 1847 and 1848, the evil was general, and "no part of the country was exempt from the infliction."* Vagrancy had suddenly become a plague which could scarcely be exaggerated. "The vagrants,” says a poor law inspector†, "are described by the relieving officers and masters of workhouses as coming in hordes towards evening, asking for food and lodging as a right. They are said to be dirty, ragged, and abusive. They circulate in rounds of from thirty to fifty miles radius. They live by begging and vagabondage. They have no intention of ever doing a turn of work. They use the workhouse as their inn, avoiding any, where the discipline is troublesome, or administration of relief difficult." "They roam about in bands consisting of large numbers of women and children, to whom it is almost impossible to refuse relief, and from whom it is difficult to exact any work. The men belonging to them often have money, and remain outside the workhouse, sleep * First Annual Report of the Poor Law Board, 1848, pp. 5, 6. † Captain Robinson, R. N., Report on the Counties of Surrey and Sussex, dated July, 1848, p. 86. of Reports to the Poor Law Board, &c. 1850. ing, at this season, in the open air, and sending their women and children into the house for food and shelter." "The extraordinary number of the applicants almost precludes any examination into their case; and except where the relieving officers have been persons of great firmness and nerve, the abuse has been permitted to extend to a most alarming height." "The whole matter is well worthy of the attention o the legislature." Happily, no act of parliament was passed! An excellent Minute of the Poor Law Board, dated Aug. 4. 1848, prepared by the late Mr. Charles Buller, pointed out and explained that a sound and vigilant discrimination in respect of the objects of relief, and the steady "refusal of aid to all who are not ascertained to be in a state of destitution, are obviously the most effectual remedies against the increase of vagrancy and mendicancy." This minute was communicated to Boards of Guardians in the summer of 1848, and the adoption of its advice was at once followed by a great diminution of the number of vagrant poor applying for relief.* The legislature of Charles II., instead of confining itself to the task of thus providing a simple and efficacious remedy for a temporary grievance, by improving the administration of the relief given under the statute of Elizabeth, devised and established a new and stringent code of pauper legislation containing an arbitrary and unjust law of settlement and removal, the effects of which have been felt down to the present day. At the time of the restoration of Charles II., a period of more than half a century had passed since the enactment of the great statute of Elizabeth; and during the whole of that period, the only complaint respecting the law which appears to have been made was, that it was not in all places sufficiently acted on; that parishes were slow and reluctant to perform their duty of making proper provision for the relief "The re * Second Annual Report of the Poor Law Board, 1849, p. 11. commendations of this minute were very generally adopted, the consequence of which was a marked decrease of the number of vagrants applying for relief. It will be noticed that the number relieved on the 1st July, 1848, before the issuing of the minute, was 13,714, but the number relieved in July, 1849, was only 5662, being a decrease of 8052, or 58.7 per cent." of their poor. No one, either in parliament or out of parliament, proposed to repeal that statute; and we may be sure that a compulsory law, imposing a direct tax, such as the poor-rate is, would not have been submitted to by the landed interest of England, silently, and without any attempt to get rid of it or to amend it, had it not been thought just, and found to work well. The governments of James I., of Charles I., and of Cromwell, equally acquiesced in the Elizabethan poor law. The owners of real estate, by whom in substance, the poor-rate, under the statute of Elizabeth, has ever been borne*, were probably as little likely to remain silent, under any supposed grievance, in the seventeenth century, as they prove themselves to be in the nineteenth. Political events which preceded the restoration of Charles II., render it highly probable that an efficient administration of a vagrant law was then called for. A temporary evil seems to have led to the passing of this permanent measure, and that temporary evil seems, even from the recital of the statute, to have consisted, in neglect to provide relief in some parishes, and to administer it in others, under the statute of Elizabeth. The price of wheat at the time of the passing of the statute of 14 Charles II., and for some years previously, deserves to be noticed. *The power, which the statute was held to give, of assessing inhabitants in respect of their visible personal property, locally situated within the parish, must always have been inconvenient, and, except in a small class of places, impracticable to act on. |