POOL LAWS AND PAUPERISM. A pauper in England is a person who, unable to support himself, receives money or money's worth from the contributions of those who are by law compelled to main tain him wholly or in part. There are many poor persons who are not paupers. He who gets his living by his labour, but receives no legal relief, is not a pau per. He who will not or does not work, but gets his living by begging, is a men dicant. Those who are supported wholly or in part by the voluntary gifts of cha ritable persons are not paupers.
The causes of pauperism are numerous, and it would be equivalent to an attempt to explain most of the phenomena of modern society, if we should affect to assign all its possible or even all its actual causes in any given country. Some of the causes however are clearly traceable is positive law. Every history of positive legislation in this and other countries shows that those who have had the power to make laws have not only ignorantly and unintentionally injured society by not perceiving the tendency of their own enactments, but have often purposely and designedly attempted to accomplish ob jects which they believed to be beneficial to society, but which an enlarged ex perience and a sound philosophy have proved to be detrimental to the general interest When the object has been a good one, a legislator has often failed in accomplishing it, owing to ignorance of the proper means. In England legal interference with the condition of the poor has in some degree been exercised for nearly 500 years. In no country have greater efforts been made to regulate their condition, nor greater mistakes com mitted in this branch of government.
The great object of the earlier efforts in pauper legation was the restraint of vagrancy. The 12th Richard II. c. 7 (1388) prohibits any labourer from quitting his dwelling-place without a testimonial from a justice of the peace, showing reasonable cause for his going, and without such a testimonial any such wanderer might be apprehended and put in the stocks. Impotent persons were to remain in the towns where they were dwelling at the passing of the act, pro vided the inhabitants would support them ; otherwise they were to go to the places of their birth, to be there supported. By acts passed in the 11 and 19 of Henry VII. (1495 and 1504) impotent beggars were required to go to the hundred where they had last dwelt for three years, or where they were born, and were forbid den to beg elsewere. By the act 22 Henry VIII. c. 12 (1531), justices were directed to assign to impotent poor per sons a district within which they might beg, and beyond which they were for bidden to beg, under pain of being im prisoned and kept in the stocks on bread and water. Able-bodied beggars were to be whipped and forced to return to their place of birth, or where they had last lived for three years.
These acts appear to have had no per manent effect in repressing vagrancy An act passed in 1536 (27 Henry VIII c. 25) is the first by which voluntary charity was converted into compulsorj payment. It enacts that the head officer
of every parish to which the impotent o able-bodied poor may resort under tit, provisions of the act of 1531, shall receiv, and keep them, so that none shall b compelled to beg openly. The able bodied were to be kept to constant 'about and every parish making default was ti forfeit twenty shillings a month. Th money required for the support of th poor was to be collected partly by th head officers of corporate towns and th churchwardens of parishes, and part!: was to be derived from collections in th churches and on various occasions wher the clergy had opportunities for exhort ing the people to charity. Almsgivin, beyond the town or parish was prohibiter on forfeiture of ten times the amour given. A "sturdy beggar" was to b whipped the first time he was detecte in begging; to have his right ear cropper for the second offence ; and if again guilt of begging, was to be indicted "for wan dering, loitering, and idleness," and i convicted was " to suffer execution c death as a felon and an enemy of th oommonwealth." The severity of thi act prevented its execution, and it wa repealed by 1 Edward VI. c. 3 (1547; Under this statute every able-bodied pet sou who should not apply himself t some honest labour, or offer to serve fa even meat and drink, was to be take for a vagabond, branded on the shoulder and adjudged a slave for two years to an one who should demand him, to be fe on bread and water and refuse meat, an made to work by being beaten, chain( or otherwise treated. If he ran awe during the two years, he was to It branded on the cheek, and adjudged slave for life, and if he ran away agaii he was to suffer death as a felon. It n( demanded as a slave, he was to be kel to hard labour on the highways in chain: The impotent poor were to be passed t their place of birth or settlement, fror the hands of one parish constable to thus of another. The statute was repeale three years after, and that of 1531 wa revived. In 1551 an act was passed which directed that a book should be kept in every parish, containing the names of the householders and of the impotent poor ; that collectors of alms should be appointed who should "gently ask every man and woman what they of their cha rity will give weekly to the relief of the poor." If any one able to give should refuse or discourage others from giving, the ministers and churchwardens were to exhort him, and, failing of success, the bishop was to admonish him on the subject. This act, and another made to enforce' it, which was passed in 1555, were wholly ineffectual, and in 1563 it was re-enacted (5 Eliz. c. 3), with the addition that any person able to con tribute and refusing should be cited by the bishop to appear at the next sessions before the justices, where, if he would not be persuaded to give, the justices were to tax him according to their dis cretion, and on his refusal he was to be committed to gaol until the sum taxed should be paid, with all arrears.