Page:William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (3rd ed, 1768, vol I).djvu/379

of a baſtard child; for a baſtard, having in the eye of the law no father, cannot be referred to his ſettlement, as other children may^[1]. But, in legitimate children, though the place of birth be prima facie the ſettlement, yet it is not concluſively ſo; for there are, 2. Settlements by parentage, being the ſettlement of one's father or mother: all children being really ſettled in the pariſh where their parents are ſettled, until they get a new ſettlement for themſelves^[2]. A new ſettlement may be acquired ſeveral ways; as, 3. By marriage. For a woman, marrying a man that is ſettled in another pariſh, changes her own: the law not permitting the ſeparation of huſband and wife^[3]. But if the man has no ſettlement, her's is ſuſpended during his life, if he remains in England and is able to maintain her, but in his abſence, or after his death, or during (perhaps) his inability, ſhe may return to her old ſettlement^[4]. The other methods of acquiring ſettlements in any pariſh are all reducible to this one, of forty days reſidence therein: but this forty days reſidence (which is conſtrued to be lodging or lying there) muſt not be by fraud, or ſtealth, or in any clandeſtine manner; but accompanied with one or other of the following concomitant circumſtances. The next method therefore of gaining a ſettlement, is, 4. By forty days reſidence, and notice. For if a ſtranger comes into a pariſh, and delivers notice in writing of his place of abode, and number of his family, to one of the overſeers (which muſt be read in the church and regiſtered) and reſides there unmoleſted for forty days after ſuch notice, he is legally ſettled thereby^[5]. For the law preſumes that ſuch a one at the time of notice is not likely to become chargeable, elſe he would not venture to give it; or that, in ſuch caſe, the pariſh would take care to remove him. But there are alſo other circumſtances equivalent to ſuch notice: therefore, 5. Renting for a year a tenement of the yearly value of ten pounds, and reſiding forty days in the pariſh, gains a ſettlement

1. Salk. 427.
2. Salk. 528. 2 Lord Raym. 1473.
3. Stra. 544.
4. Foley. 249. 251. 252.
5. Stat. 13 & 14 Car. II. c. 12. 1 Jac. II. c. 17. 3 & 4 W. & Mar. c. 11.