der; to set such uncontrollable machines for the purpose of committing this murder, I think would be indictable; and I am therefore of opinion, that he who suffers from such machines has a fair ground of action, in spite of any notice; for it is not in the power of notice to make them lawful.'

SCARLETT'S POOR BILL. (E. REVIEW, 1821.)

1. Letter to James Scarlett, Esq., M. P., on his Bill relating to Poor-Laws. By a Surrey Magistrate. London, 1821.

2. An Address to the Imperial Parliament, upon the Practical Means of gradually abolishing the Poor-Laws, and Educating the Poor Systematically. Illustrated by an Account of the Colonies of Fredericks-Oord in Holland, and of the Common Mountain in the South of Ireland. With General Observations. Third Edition. By William Herbert Saunders, Esq. London, 1821.

3. On Pauperism and the Poor-Laws. With a Supplement. London, 1821.

WE are friendly to the main principle of Mr. Scarlett's bill; but are rather surprised at the unworkmanlike manner in which he has set about it.

To fix a maximum for the Poor-rates, we should conceive to be an operation of sufficient difficulty and novelty for any one bill. There was no need to provoke more prejudice, to rouse more hostility, and create more alarm, than such a bill would naturally do. But Mr. Scarlett is a very strong man; and before he works his battering ram, he chooses to have the wall made of a thickness worthy of his blow-capable of evincing, by the enormity of its ruins, the superfluity of his vigour, and the certainty of his aim. Accordingly he has introduced into his bill a number of provisions, which have no necessary, and indeed no near connection with his great and main object; but which are sure to draw upon his back all the Sir John's and Sir Thomas's in the House of Commons. It may be right, or it may be wrong, that the chargeable poor should be removed; but why introduce such a controverted point into a bill framed for a much more important object, and of itself calculated to produce so much difference of opinion? Mr. Scarlett

appears to us to have been not only indiscreet in the introduction of such heterogeneous matter, but very much mistaken in the enactments which that matter contains.

'And be it further enacted, that from and after the passing of this Act, it shall not be lawful for any Justice of Peace or other person to remove, or cause to be removed, any poor person or persons from any parish, township or place, to any other, by reason of such person or persons being chargeable to such parish township or place, or being unable to maintain him or themselves, or under colour of such person or persons being settled in any other parish, township or place, any law or statute to the contrary notwithstanding: Provided always, that nothing in this Act shall in anywise be deemed to alter any law now in force for the punishment of vagrants, or for removing poor persons to Scotland, Ireland, or the Isles of Guernsey, Jersey, and Man. And be it further enacted, that in all cases where any poor person, at the time of the passing this act, shall be resident in any parish, township or place, where he is not legally settled and shall be receiving relief from the Overseers, Guardians, or Directors of the Poor of the place of his legal settlement, the said Overseers, Guardians, or Directors are hereby required to continue such relief, in the same manner, and by the same means, as the same is now administered, until one of His Majesty's Justices of the Peace, in or near the place of residence of such poor person, shall, upon application to him, either by such poor person, or any other person, on his behalf, for the continuance thereof, or by the said Overseers, Guardians, or Directors of the Poor, paying such relief, for the discharge thereof, certify that the same is no longer necessary.'-Bill, pp. 3, 4.

Now, here is a gentleman, so thoroughly and so justly sensible of the evils of the Poor-Laws, that he introduces into the House of Commons a very plain, and very bold measure to restrain them; and yet, in the very same bill, he abrogates the few impediments that remain to universal mendicity. The present law says, ' Before you can turn beggar in the place of your residence, you must have been born there, or you must have rented a farm there, or served an office;' but Mr. Scarlett says, 'You may beg anywhere where you happen to be. I will have no obstacles to your turning beggar; I will give every facility and every allurement to the destruction of

your independence.' We are quite confident that the direct tendency of Mr. Scarlett's enactments is to produce these effects. Labourers living in one place, and settled in another are uniformly the best and most independent characters in the place. Alarmed at the idea

of being removed from the situation of their choice, and knowing they have nothing to depend upon but themselves, they are alone exempted from the degrading influence of the Poor-Laws, and frequently arrive at independence by their exclusion from that baneful privilege which is offered to them by the inconsistent benevolence of this bill. If some are removed, after long residence in parishes where they are not settled, these examples only insure the beneficial effects of which we have been speaking. Others see them, dread the same fate, quit the mug, and grasp the flail. Our policy, as we have explained in a previous article, is directly the reverse of that of Mr. Scarlett. Considering that a poor man, since Mr. East's bill, if he ask no charity, has a right to live where he pleases, and that a settlement is now nothing more than a beggar's ticket, we would gradually abolish all means of gaining a settlement, but those of birth, parentage, or marriage; and this method would destroy litigation as effectually as the method proposed by Mr. Scarlett.*

Mr. Scarlett's plan too, we are firmly persuaded, would completely defeat his own intentions; and would inflict a greater injury upon the poor than this very bill, intended to prevent their capricious removal. If his bill had passed, he could not have passed. His post-chaise on the Northern Circuit would have been impeded by the crowds of houseless villagers, driven from their cottages by landlords rendered merciless by the bill. In the mud

all in the mud (for such cases made and provided) would they have rolled this most excellent counsellor. Instigated by the devil and their own malicious purposes, his wig they would have polluted, and tossed to a thou

*This has since been done.

sand winds the parchment bickerings of Doe and Roe. Mr. Scarlett's bill is so powerful a motive to proprietors for the depopulation of a village-for preventing the poor from living where they wish to live,—that nothing but the conviction that such a bill would never be suffered to pass, has prevented those effects from already taking place. Landlords would, in the contemplation of such a bill, pull down all the cottages of persons not belonging to the parish, and eject the tenants; the most vigorous measures would be taken to prevent any one from remaining or coming who was not absolutely necessary to the lord of the soil. At present, cottages are let to any body; because, if they are burthensome to the parish, the tenants can be removed. But the impossibility of doing this would cause the immediate demolition of cottages; prevent the erection of fresh ones where they are really wanted; and chain a poor man for ever to the place of his birth, without the possibility of moving. If every body who passed over Mr. Scarlett's threshold were to gain a settlement for life in his house, he would take good care never to be at home. We all boldly let our friends in, because we know we can easily get them out. So it is with the residence of the poor. Their present power of living where they please, and going where they please, entirely depends upon the possibility of their removal when they become chargeable. If any mistaken friend were to take from them this protection, the whole power and jealousy of property would be turned against their locomotive liberty; they would become adscripti glebæ, no more capable of going out of the parish than a tree is of proceeding, with its roots and branches, to a neighbouring wood.

The remedy here proposed for these evils is really one of the most extraordinary we ever remember to have been introduced into any act of Parliament.

'And whereas it may happen, that in several parishes or townships now burdened with the maintenance of the Poor settled and residing therein, the owners of lands or inhabitants may, in order to remove the residence of the labouring Poor from such