Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 3.djvu/648

 634 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

Florida, Kentucky, Alabama, Louisiana, Idaho, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, and California), no settlement qualification what- ever is found. Georgia, while having no definite settlement qual- ification, has a law making one liable for the support of a pauper when removed to a county in order to secure public support there for him. 1 Similarly in Arkansas the poor authorities are not responsible for the care of any who may have removed in order to secure public support. 2 In Vermont the old settlement law has been repealed and a mere residence qualification sub- stituted for it. 3

and living thereon three years, or five years' residence in the town, with the payment of a poll-tax for three years, is required. In New Hampshire (1-4, ch. 83) not only is self-maintenance (maintenance without public relief) necessary, but also the payment of taxes on real estate of the value of $150 or personal property of the value of $250, for four years, or the payment of a poll-tax for seven consecutive years. (See also 3 N. H., 203, and 30 N. H., 71.)

In Rhode Island (i, ch. 78) the requirement is the payment of taxes for five years on a freehold worth $200, or the ownership of an estate netting $20 per year, for three years. In Delaware (12, ch. 46) holding office one year, paying poor rates for two consecutive years, paying $50 rent on property or owning $100 of real property, together with one year's residence, is necessary. The provision in Pennsylvania (50, p. 1705) differs from this only in that the payment of rent need be but $10, instead of $50.

New Jersey also had a property qualification similar to these given, but in 1891 the law was so amended as to abolish it. The last legislature of Pennsylvania, also, considered a bill for the repeal of the highly complex and useless law of that state and the substitution of one year's residence without public relief for it, but the measure did not succeed in getting through.

1 The law provides (769) that when a pauper is removed "for the purpose of bur- dening some other community, the person so engaged shall be personally liable for the support of the pauper in the county where he locates." If such person be insol- vent, the county from which the pauper is removed becomes liable (768).

of any needy poor "who have not removed from any other county for the purpose of imposing the charge of keeping them on any county other than the one in which they last lived."
 * Section 860 provides that each county shall be liable for the relief and support

3 In 1886 the old law whereby four years' residence without public relief was necessary to secure a settlement was repealed. Now only a residence qualification is found. " To retain a residence under the pauper law there must be a definite inten- tion to return and a place to which the person has a right to return" (68 Vt., 487) " Transients " are to be relieved where they are and returned to the place where they resided sixty days previous to their application for relief. So Vermont, while repeal- ing her old law, has substituted for it a measure definitely fixing the responsibility for "transients." (See Act of November 24, 1886, and No. 55, Acts of 1892.)