Page:William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (3rd ed, 1768, vol I).djvu/379

 Ch. 9. of a batard child; for a batard, having in the eye of the law no father, cannot be referred to his ettlement, as other children may. But, in legitimate children, though the place of birth be prima facie the ettlement, yet it is not concluively o; for there are, 2. Settlements by parentage, being the ettlement of one's father or mother: all children being really ettled in the parih where their parents are ettled, until they get a new ettlement for themelves. A new ettlement may be acquired everal ways; as, 3. By marriage. For a woman, marrying a man that is ettled in another parih, changes her own: the law not permitting the eparation of huband and wife. But if the man has no ettlement, her's is upended during his life, if he remains in England and is able to maintain her, but in his abence, or after his death, or during (perhaps) his inability, he may return to her old ettlement. The other methods of acquiring ettlements in any parih are all reducible to this one, of forty days reidence therein: but this forty days reidence (which is contrued to be lodging or lying there) mut not be by fraud, or tealth, or in any clandetine manner; but accompanied with one or other of the following concomitant circumtances. The next method therefore of gaining a ettlement, is, 4. By forty days reidence, and notice. For if a tranger comes into a parih, and delivers notice in writing of his place of abode, and number of his family, to one of the overeers (which mut be read in the church and regitered) and reides there unmoleted for forty days after uch notice, he is legally ettled thereby. For the law preumes that uch a one at the time of notice is not likely to become chargeable, ele he would not venture to give it; or that, in uch cae, the parih would take care to remove him. But there are alo other circumtances equivalent to uch notice: therefore, 5. Renting for a year a tenement of the yearly value of ten pounds, and reiding forty days in the parih, gains a ettlement Rh