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The Wealth of Nations
ments obstructs even that of common labour. It may be worth while
to give some account of the rise, progress, and present state of this
disorder, the greatest, perhaps, of any in the police of England.
When, by the destruction of monasteries, the poor had been
deprived of the charity of those religious houses, after some other
ineffectual attempts for their relief, it was enacted, by the 43d of
Elizabeth, c. 2. that every parish should be bound to provide for
its own poor, and that overseers of the poor should be annually
appointed, who, with the church-wardens, should raise, by a par-
ish rate, competent sums for this purpose.
By this statute, the necessity of providing for their own poor
was indispensably imposed upon every parish. Who were to be
considered as the poor of each parish became, therefore, a ques-
tion of some importance. This question, after some variation, was
at last determined by the 13th and 14th of Charles II. when it was
enacted, that forty days undisturbed residence should gain any
person a settlement in any parish; but that within that time it
should be lawful for two justices of the peace, upon complaint
made by the church-wardens or overseers of the poor, to remove
any new inhabitant to the parish where he was last legally settled;
unless he either rented a tenement of ten pounds a-year, or could
give such security for the discharge of the parish where he was
then living, as those justices should judge sufficient.
Some frauds, it is said, were committed in consequence of this
statute; parish officers sometime’s bribing their own poor to go
clandestinely to another parish, and, by keeping themselves con-
cealed for forty days, to gain a settlement there, to the discharge of
that to which they properly belonged. It was enacted, therefore,
by the 1st of James II. that the forty days undisturbed residence of
any person necessary to gain a settlement, should be accounted
only from the time of his delivering notice, in writing, of the place
of his abode and the number of his family, to one of the church-
wardens or overseers of the parish where he came to dwell.
But parish officers, it seems, were not always more honest with
regard to their own than they had been with regard to other par-
ishes, and sometimes connived at such intrusions, receiving the
notice, and taking no proper steps in consequence of it. As every
person in a parish, therefore, was supposed to have an interest to
prevent as much as possible their being burdened by such intrud-
ers, it was further enacted by the 3rd of William III. that the forty
days residence should be accounted only from the publication of
such notice in writing on Sunday in the church, immediately after
divine service.
“After all,” says Doctor Burn, “this kind of settlement, by con-
tinuing forty days after publication of notice in writing, is very
seldom obtained; and the design of the acts is not so much for
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Adam Smith
gaining of settlements, as for the avoiding of them by persons
coming into a parish clandestinely, for the giving of notice is only
putting a force upon the parish to remove. But if a person’s situa-
tion is such, that it is doubtful whether he is actually removable or
not, he shall, by giving of notice, compel the parish either to allow
him a settlement uncontested, by suffering him to continue forty
days, or by removing him to try the right.”
This statute, therefore, rendered it almost impracticable for a
poor man to gain a new settlement in the old way, by forty days
inhabitancy. But that it might not appear to preclude altogether
the common people of one’ parish from ever establishing them-
selves with security in another, it appointed four other ways by
which a settlement might be gained without any notice delivered
or published. The first was, by being taxed to parish rates and
paying them; the second, by being elected into an annual parish
office, and serving in it a year; the third, by serving an apprentice-
ship in the parish; the fourth, by being hired into service there for
a year, and continuing in the same service during the whole of it.
Nobody can gain a settlement by either of the two first ways, but
by the public deed of the whole parish, who are too well aware of
the consequences to adopt any new-comer, who has nothing but
his labour to support him, either by taxing him to parish rates, or
by electing him into a parish office.
No married man can well gain any settlement in either of the
two last ways. An apprentice is scarce ever married; and it is
expressly enacted, that no married servant shall gain any settle-
ment by being hired for a year. The principal effect of introduc-
ing settlement by service, has been to put out in a great measure
the old fashion of hiring for a year; which before had been so
customary in England, that even at this day, if no particular term
is agreed upon, the law intends that every servant is hired for a
year. But masters are not always willing to give their servants a
settlement by hiring them in this manner; and servants are not
always willing to be so hired, because, as every last settlement
discharges all the foregoing, they might thereby lose their origi-
nal settlement in the places of their nativity, the habitation of
their parents and relations.
No independent workman, it is evident, whether labourer or
artificer, is likely to gain any new settlement, either by apprentice-
ship or by service. When such a person, therefore, carried his in-
dustry to a new parish, he was liable to be removed, how healthy
and industrious soever, at the caprice of any churchwarden or over-
seer, unless he either rented a tenement of ten pounds a-year, a
thing impossible for one who has nothing but his labour to live
by, or could give such security for the discharge of the parish as
two justices of the peace should judge sufficient.