also a serious question, which is now engaging a large part of the public attention, but here again we can say that the present conditions are as dust in the balance compared with those of 150 years ago.
In 1764 Dr Burn published his "History of the Poor Laws": his proposals contain little that is new except that it should be made a penal offence to give money to beggars.
In 1772 Baron Maseres published a "Proposal for establishing Life Annuities in Parishes for the Comfort of the Poor," upon a contributary basis, and his scheme is very similar to that put forward by Mr Chamberlain some years ago, so we see that there is nothing new even about Old Age Pensions.
Lord Kames, the Scottish judge, published his "Sketches of the History of Man" in 1774, and in them deals with the Poor Law question. "If," he says, "it should be reported of some foreign nation that the burden of maintaining the idle and profligate is laid upon the frugal and industrious who work hard for a maintenance for themselves, what would we think of such a nation ? Yet this is literally the case in England."
Only one more pamphlet remains to be noted, and that because it takes a different view of the causes of the increase of the poor from all the other writers cited. It is entitled "An Investigation of Mr Pitt's Speech," and was written by a Mr Howlett and published about 1796. Mr Howlett denies that the Poor Laws have had the effect attributed to them. He quotes the old song:
"Hang sorrow, cast away care,
The parish is bound to maintain us,"
in order to contend that no one but "a sot in his cups" would be influenced by such motives. The
