the labourer who received more or less. Wheat at this time was seventy shillings a quarter—a far higher price than It generally is in our time. All kinds of clothing that they could make themselves were much higher than with us, because manufacturing was not so extensive.
The wages of artisans were but little better, except in London, where first-rate bricklayers and carpenters could earn two shillings or two-and-sixpence a day. In many counties, indeed, they were restricted to the same rate as that of the labourers. In 1685 this was the case in Warwickshire, where the daily wages of masons, bricklayers, carpenters, shinglers, and other handicraftsmen, are fixed with those of ploughmen, miners, ditchers, &c., at only sixpence a day. A shilling a day is quoted as extravagant wages. The consequence was that children were compelled to work as early as six years of age. This was very much the case at Norwich; and writers of the time refer with pride to the fact that before nine years of age children earned more than was necessary for their own support by twelve thousand pounds a year! The consequence of the miserable pay and the dearness of food and clothing was an amount of pauperism scarcely less than in the reign of Henry VIII. or Elizabeth. The poor rates amounted at this period to from seven to nine hundred thousand pounds a year—that is, one-sixth of what they are now, with a population not one-third of the present one. One-tenth of the present population, or only one-thirteenth when trade is good, claims relief; but then it was asserted by writers of the day that one-fourth of the people were paupers.
The condition of the poor was rendered infinitely worse two years after the restoration of Charles II. than it had been, by an act which was passed to prevent poor people settling in any other place than the one where they had previously resided. This was the origin of the law of settlement, which continued down to our time to harass the poor, and to waste the parochial funds in litigation. In fact Sir Frederick Eden, in his work on "The State of the Poor," asserts that it has caused more litigation, and his been more profitable to the lawyers than any other act ever passed.
The preamble of the act of 1662 recounts the prevalence of pauperism, and at the same time professes that this enactment "is for the good of the poor!" "The necessity," it says, "number, and continued increase of the poor, not only within the circles of London and Westminster, with the liberties of each of them, but also through the whole kingdom of England and dominion of Wales, is very great and exceeding burdensome, being occasioned by reason of some defects in the law concerning the settlement of the poor, and for want of due provision of the regulations of relief and employment in such parishes or places where they are legally settled, which doth enforce many to turn incorrigible rogues, and others to perish for want, together with the neglect of the faithful execution of such laws and statutes as have formerly been made for the apprehension of rogues and vagabonds, and for the good of the poor."
It was therefore provided that any two justices of the peace should, on complaint made by the churchwardens and overseers of the poor, within forty days after the arrival of any new comer in the parish, proceed to remove him by force to the parish where he had last a legal settlement, either as native, house-holder, sojourner, apprentice, or servant, unless he either rented a house of ten pounds a year, or could give such security against becoming chargeable as the judges should deem sufficient. This was made more stringent by a subsequent act 1 James II. c. 17, which, to prevent any one getting a settlement by the neglect or oversight of the parish authorities, only dated the day of his entrance into the parish from the time that he gave a written notice of his new abode and the number of his family.
These enactments, in fact, converted the free labourers of England into serfs. They were bound to the soil, and could not move from the spot unless by the will of the overseers and justices. It was not necessary that a man should become chargeable to the parish in order to effect his removal; it was enough that the authorities could assume that he might; become so; and it was not till 1795—in fact, till the reign of George III.—that this oppressive law was ameliorated, allowing working people to change their abode as they saw a better chance of employment elsewhere, so long as they did not come upon the parish.
The consequences of this new law of settlement were not long in showing themselves. In 1668, but six years after the passing of the act of Charles II., Sir Josiah Child, in his "New Discoveries of Trade," thus describes the condition of the poor under it. After showing the hardships which the industrious labourers suffered by being continually pushed back when they endeavoured to improve their state in a now place, he shows the uselessness of attempting to check vagrancy by it, and the trouble and expense it entailed on parishes for nothing. "A poor, idle person, that will not work, or that nobody will employ in the country, comes up to London to set up the trade of begging. Such a person, probably, may beg up and down the streets seven years, it may be seven-and-twenty, before anybody asketh why she doth so; and if at length she hath the ill-hap in some parish to meet with a more vigilant beadle than one in twenty of them are, all he does is but to lead her the length of five or six houses into another parish, and then concludes, as his masters the parishioners do, that he hath done the part of a most diligent officer. But suppose he should yet go further, to the end of his line, which is the end of the law, and the perfect execution of his office—that is, suppose he should carry this poor wretch to a justice of the peace, and he should order the delinquent to be whipped, and sent from parish to parish to the place of her birth or last abode, which not one justice of twenty, through pity or other cause, will do, even this is a great charge upon the country; and yet the business of the nation is itself wholly undone; for no sooner doth the delinquent arrive at the place assigned but, for shame or idleness she presently deserts it, and wanders directly back, or some other way, hoping for better fortune; whilst the parish to which she is sent, knowing her to be a lazy, and perhaps worse qualified person, is as wiling to be rid of her as she is to be gone thence."
The unsatisfactory state of pauperism to which the law of settlement brought the kingdom, set numbers of heads at work to plan schemes of employing the destitute poor, and Sir Josiah Child proposed that persons should be appointed for this purpose, to be called "the fathers of the poor." This, seems to be the origin of the modern guardians of the poor.
