some parishes, where the relative state of the poor and the parish might render an increase of the relief as just and reasonable as it is possible for any thing to be under the Poor-Laws at all. It would deny to many possible fair claimants the whole, or a part, of that degree of relief commonly granted elsewhere to persons in their condition, on this or that account of claim. Leaving the reason of the present demands wholly unimpeached, and unexplained; directing no distinct warning or remonstrance to the parties, in the line of their affairs, by putting a check to their expectations upon positive matters implicated in their conduct; which would be speaking to them in a definite sense, and a sense applicable to all: this plan of limitation would nurture the whole mass of the claim in its origin, and deny the allowance of it to thousands, on account of reasons properly affecting a distant quarter, of which they know nothing. The want of

a clear method, and of a good principle at the bottom of it, in this direct compulsory restriction, renders it, I think, wholly unacceptable, unless it be the only possible plan that can be devised for accomplishing the same end. If a If a parish had to keep its account with a single dependant, the plan would be much more useful in that case. For the ascertained fact of the total amount of his expectations might set his mind at rest, and put him on a decided course of providing for himself. But, in the limitation proposed to be made, the ascertained fact is of a general amount only, not of each man's share in it. Consequently, each man has his indefinite expectations left to him, and every separate specific ground of expectation remaining as before.'

Mr. Davison talks of the propriety of refusing to find labour for able labourers after the lapse of ten years; as if it was some ordinary bill he was proposing, unaccompanied by the slightest risk. It is very easy to make such laws, and to propose them; but it would be of immense difficulty to carry them into execution. Done it must be, every body knows that; but the real merit will consist in discovering the gradual and gentle means by which the difficulties of getting parish labour may be increased, and the life of a parish pauper be rendered a life of salutary and deterring hardship. A law that rendered such request for labour perfectly lawful for ten years longer, and then suddenly abolished it, would merely bespeak a certain, general, and violent insurrec

tion for the year 1830. The legislator, thank God, is in his nature a more cunning and gradual animal.

Before we drop Mr. Davison, who writes like a very sensible man, we wish to say a few words about his style. If he would think less about it, he would write much better. It is always as plethoric and full-dressed as if he were writing a treatise de finibus bonorum et malorum. He is sometimes obscure; and is occasionally apt to dress up common-sized thoughts in big clothes, and to dwell a little too long in proving what every man of sense knows and admits. We hope we shall not offend Mr. Davison by these remarks; and we have really no intention of doing so. His views upon the Poor-Laws are, generally speaking, very correct and philosophical; he writes like a gentleman, a scholar, and a man capable of eloquence; and we hope he will be a bishop. If his mitred productions are as enlightened and liberal as this, we are sure he will confer as much honour on the Bench as he receives from it. There is a good deal, however, in Mr. Davison's book about the virtuous marriages of the poor.' To have really the charge of a family as a husband and a father, we are told, -to have the privilege of laying out his life in their service, is the poor man's boast, his home is the school of his sentiments,' &c. &c. This is viewing human life through a Claude Lorraine glass, and decorating it with colours which do not belong to it. A ploughman marries a ploughwoman because she is plump; generally uses her ill; thinks his children an incumbrance; very often flogs them; and, for sentiment, has nothing more nearly approaching to it than the ideas of broiled bacon and mashed potatoes. This is the state of the lower orders of mankind-deplorable, but true- and yet rendered much worse by the Poor-Laws.

6

The system of roundsmen is much complained of; as well as that by which the labour of paupers is paid, partly by the rate, partly by the master-and a long string of Sussex Justices send up a petition on the subject. But the evil we are suffering under is an excess of population. There are ten men applying for work,

when five only are wanted; of course, such a redundance of labouring persons must depress the rate of their labour far beyond what is sufficient for the support of their families. And how is that deficiency to be made up but from the parish rates, unless it is meant suddenly and immediately to abolish the whole system of the Poor-Laws? To state that the rate of labour is lower than a man can live by, is merely to state that we have had, and have, Poor-Laws-of which this practice is at length the inevitable consequence; and nothing could be more absurd than to attempt to prevent, by Acts of Parliament, the natural depreciation of an article which exists in much greater abundance than it is wanted. Nor can any thing be more unjust than the complaint, that roundsmen are paid by their employers at an inferior rate, and that the difference is made up by the parish funds. A roundsman is commonly an inferior description of labourer who cannot get regularly hired;

he comes upon his parish for labour commonly at those seasons when there is the least to do; he is not a servant of the farmer's choice, and probably does not suit him; he goes off to any other labour at a moment's warning, when he finds it more profitable;—and the farmer is forced to keep nearly the same number of labourers as if there were no roundsmen at all. Is it just, then, that a labourer, combining every species of imperfection, should receive the same wages as a chosen, regular, stationary person, who is always ready at hand, and whom the farmer has selected for his dexterity and character?

Those persons who do not, and cannot employ labourers, have no kind of right to complain of the third or fourth part of the wages being paid by the rates; for if the farmers did not agree among themselves to take such occasional labourers, the whole of their support must be paid by the rates, instead of one third. The order is, that the pauper shall be paid such a sum as will support himself and family; and if this agreement to take roundsmen was not entered into by the farmers, they must be paid, by the rates, the whole of the amount of

the order, for doing nothing. If a circulating labourer, therefore, with three children, to whom the Justices would order 12s. per week, receives 8s. from his employer, and 4s. from the rates, the parish is not burthened by this system to the amount of 4s., but relieved to the amount of 8s. A parish manufacture, conducted by overseers, is infinitely more burthensome to the rates than any system of roundsmen. There are undoubtedly a few instances to the contrary. Zeal and talents will cure the original defects of any system; but to suppose that average men can do what extraordinary men have done, is the cause of many silly projects and extravagant blunders. Mr. Owen may give his whole heart and soul to the improvement of one of his parochial parallelograms; but who is to succeed to Mr. Owen's enthusiasm ? Before we have quite done with the subject of roundsmen, we cannot help noticing a strange assertion of Mr. Nicol, that the low rate of wages paid by the master is an injustice to the pauper-that he is cheated, forsooth, out of 8s. or 10s. per week by this arrangement. Nothing, however, can possibly be more absurd than such an allegation. The whole country is open to him. Can he gain more any where else? If not, this is the market price of his labour; and what right has he to complain? or how can he say he is defrauded? A combination among farmers to lower the price of labour would be impossible, if labour did not exist in much greater quantities than was wanted. All such things, whether labour, or worsted stockings, or broad cloth, are, of course, always regulated by the proportion between the supply and demand. Mr. Nicol cites an instance of a parish in Suffolk, where the labourer receives sixpence from the farmers, and the rest is made up by the rates; and for this he reprobates the conduct of the farmers. But why are they not to take labour as cheap as they can get it? Why are they not to avail themselves of the market price of this, as of any other commodity ? The rates are a separate consideration: let them supply what is wanting; but the farmer is right to get his iron, his wood, and his labour, as cheap as he can. It would,

we admit, come nearly to the same thing, if 1007. were paid in wages rather than 25l. in wages, and 751. by rate; but then, if the farmers were to agree to give wages above the market price, and sufficient for the support of the labourers without any rate, such an agree ment could never be adhered to. The base and the crafty would make their labourers take less, and fling heavier rates upon those who adhered to the contract; whereas the agreement, founded upon giving as little as can be given, is pretty sure of being adhered to; and he who breaks it, lessens the rate to his neighbour, and does not increase it. The problem to be solved is this: If you have ten or twenty labourers who say they can get no work, and you cannot dispute this, and the PoorLaws remain, what better scheme can be devised, than that the farmers of the parish should employ them in their turns? and what more absurd than to suppose that farmers so employing them should give one farthing more than the market price for their labour?

It is contended, that the statute of Elizabeth, rightly interpreted, only compels the overseer to assist the sick and old, and not to find labour for strong and healthy men. This is true enough; and it would have been eminently useful to have attended to it a century past: but to find employment for all who apply, is now, by long use, become a practical part of the Poor-Laws, and will require the same care and dexterity for its abolition as any other part of that pernicious system. It would not be altogether prudent suddenly to tell a million of stout men, with spades and hoes in their hands, that the 43d of Elizabeth had been misconstrued, and that no more employment would be found for them. It requires twenty or thirty years to state such truths to such numbers.

We think, then, that the diminution of the claims of settlement, and of the authority of Justices, coupled with the other subordinate improvements we have stated, will be the best steps for beginning the abolition of the Poor-Laws. When these have been taken, the description of persons entitled to relief may be narrowed by