Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 19.djvu/485

Rh POOR LAWS 465 the last degree of punishment already mentioned. The provisions as to putting out children of beggars contained in the statute of Edward VI. already noticed were repeated in nearly the same terms, but the age of male children was extended from eighteen to twenty-four for the duration of service. The Act provided for justices licences for poor to beg, ask, and receive relief in other parishes under similar cir cumstances as badges had been granted under an earlier and repealed statute. The Act also contained many pro visions and exceptions as to places and corporate bodies, and any person &quot;able to further the charitable work&quot; con templated by the statute, and obstinately refusing to give towards the help and relief of the poor, or wilfully dis couraging others from so charitable a deed, was to be summoned before justices to abide their order, and on refusal to be committed to jail, and &quot;there to remain until he be contented with their said order, and do perform the same.&quot; There is extant a letter addressed to Lord Burghley by a justice of the peace for Somerset, which shows that the great evils arising from habits of idleness amongst the poor began then to be understood, and strengthens the idea that one great object of the legislative provisions for the poor made about that time was to prevent able-bodied men from remaining unemployed. The writer advocated building houses of correction adjoining jails, to which vagrants, after conviction, should be transported &quot;to be kept in work, except some person would take any of them into service, &quot; adding, &quot;I dare presume to say the tenth felony will not be committed that now is&quot; (Strype, Annals of Church and State). In 1576 the statute 14 Eliz. c. 5 was explained and materially extended. &quot; To the intent youth may be accus tomed and brought up in labour, and then not like to grow to be idle rogues, and to the intent also that such as be already grown up in idleness, and so .rogues at this present, may not have any just excuse in saying that they cannot get any service or work, and that other poor and needy persons being willing to labour may be set on work,&quot; it was ordained that within every city and town corporate, by appointment of the mayor and other head officer, and in every other market town or other place where the justices in their general sessions yearly shall think meet, shall be provided a stock of wool, hemp, flax, iron, or other stuff, as that country is most meet for, and being- wrought to be delivered to collectors and governors of the poor. Any person refusing to work, or begging, or living idly, or, taking such work, spoiling or embezzling it in such wise that after monition given the minister and church wardens and the collectors and governors think such person not meet to have any more work delivered to him, was to be taken, &quot;in convenient apparel meet for such a body to wear,&quot; to the &quot; house of correction &quot; estab lished by the Act, and under the government of overseers of such houses, called censors and wardens, &quot; there to be straitly kept, as well in diet as in work, and also punished from time to time.&quot; To the houses of correction were also taken and set on work not only the persons mentioned but also such &quot;as be inhabitants in no parish or taken as rogues, or who had been once punished as rogues, or by reason of the uncertainty of their birth or of their dwelling by the space of three years, or for any other cause, ought to be abiding and kept in the county.&quot; An additional clause of the Act, reciting that by the earlier Act of 14 Eliz. no &quot; pain &quot; was incurred by any impotent person who having a competent allowance provided within his parish wandered abroad without licence &quot;loitering and begging,&quot; enacted that he was to be whipped, and for a second offence to &quot;suffer as a rogue and vagabond&quot; (18 Eliz. c. 3). The &quot;stock&quot; for work and the houses of correction were provided &quot;of all the inhabitants to be taxed;&quot; but, &quot; because it is to be hoped that many well-disposed persons, understanding the good success which will grow by setting people on work and avoiding of idleness, would from time to time give towards the sustentation and maintenance of that good purpose,&quot; persons were empowered during the next twenty years to give lands for the purposes without any licence of mortmain. A later Act, reciting that this power to erect hospitals or other abiding and working houses for the poor had not its due effect by reason that no person could erect such house without special licence from the crown by letters patent, dispensed with such licence for twenty years (39 Eliz. c. 5). The numerous charities and endowments and founda tions of almshouses by will and otherwise of the 16th and 17th centuries, still extant in numerous buildings through out the country, are illustrations of the spirit of the legis lation here referred to. It is not improbable that legisla tion sometimes prompted the donors, but more probable that such legislation was a reflex of the general disposition prevalent for generations after the ordinary channels of voluntary charity w r ere obstructed. In 1597 considerable progress was made towards estab lishing a system of poor laws, not so much by introducing novelties as by entering more specifically into details, and especially by defining the legislation of some twenty years earlier (18 Eliz. c. 3) in the same reign. The appointment of overseers first mentioned in the earlier statute was provided for by enacting that the church wardens of every parish and four subsidy men or other substantial householders nominated yearly in Easter week by justices should be called overseers of the poor of the same parish. The majority of the overseers were required with the consent of justices to set to work the children of persons unable to maintain them, and also all persons married or single and having no means of maintenance and no ordinary and daily trade of life to get their living by. The taxation weekly or otherwise of inhabitants and occupiers for providing a stock of flax, hemp, wool, thread, iron, and other necessary wares and stuff to set the poor on work, and also competent sums for the necessary relief of the lame, impotent, old, blind poor, unable to work, and the cost of erection, by leave of the lords of manors, of places of habitation on waste or common lands, was gathered according to the ability of the parish (or, if the parish was unable, then of other parishes in the hundred and county), and was enforceable by warrant of distress against every one refusing to contribute, but with a power of appeal against the cess or tax. Parents and children being of sufficient ability were required to maintain their poor children or parents. Any person whatsoever Avander- ing abroad and begging in any place, by licence or without, was punishable as a rogue, with a proviso exempting poor persons asking relief in victuals only in the parishes where they dwelt (39 Eliz. c. 3). Four years after came &quot;the famous statute&quot; of 1601 Statute (43 Eliz. c. 2) already mentioned, out of which Dr Burn of 1601 - observes, &quot; more litigation and a greater amount of revenue have arisen, with consequences more extensive and more serious in their aspect, than ever were identified with any other Act of Parliament or system of legislation whatever.&quot; It was the permanent establishment of the main pro visions of the Act more than their novelty at the time the Act was passed that has fixed it as a kind of epoch in legislation for the maintenance of the poor. The Act re-enacts, verbatim for the most part, the above-mentioned statute of 1597 (39 Eliz. c. 3). The material alterations were defining the rateable property, and extending and defining the family obligation of support, and also the XIX. - 59