The two great objects of this ſtatute ſeem to have been, 1. To relieve the impotent poor, and them only. 2. To find employment for ſuch as are able to work: and this principally by providing ſtocks to be worked up at home, which perhaps might be more beneficial than accumulating all the poor in one common work-houſe; a practice which tends to deſtroy all domeſtic connexions (the only felicity of the honeſt and induſtrious labourer) and to put the ſober and diligent upon a level, in point of their earnings, with thoſe who are diſſolute and idle. Whereas, if none were to be relieved but thoſe who are incapable to get their livings, and that in proportion to their incapacity; if no children were to be removed from their parents, but ſuch as are brought up in rags and idleneſs; and if every poor man and his family were employed whenever they requested it, and were allowed the whole profits of their labour; — a ſpirit of chearful induſtry would ſoon diffuſe itſelf through every cottage; work would become eaſy and habitual, when abſolutely neceſſary to their daily ſubſiſtence; and the moſt indigent peaſant would go through his taſk without a murmur, if aſſured that he and his children (when incapable of work through infancy, age, or infirmity) would then, and then only, be intitled to ſupport from his opulent neighbours.
This appears to have been the plan of the ſtatute of queen Elizabeth; in which the only defect was confining the management of the poor to ſmall, parochial, diſtricts; which are frequently incapable of furniſhing proper work, or providing an able director. However, the laborious poor were then at liberty to ſeek employment wherever it was to be had; none being obliged to reſide in the places of their ſettlement, but ſuch as were unable or unwilling to work; and thoſe places of ſettlement being only ſuch where they were born, or had made their abode, originally for three years[1], and afterwards (in the caſe of vagabonds) for one year only[2].
