The 7 & 8 Vict. c. 101, § 12, em powers the poor-law commissioners to prescribe the duties of the masters to whom poor children may be apprenticed, and the terms and conditions of the inden tures of apprenticeship : and no poor chil dren are in future to be apprenticed by i the overseers of any parish included in any union or subject to a board of guar dians under the provisions of the 4 & 5 Wm. IV. C. 76, but it is declared to be lawful for the guardians of such union or parish to bind poor children apprentices. The 13th section abolishes so much of the 43 Eliz. c. 2, and of the 8 & 9 Wm. III. c. 3, and of all other acts, as compels any person to receive any poor child as an apprentice. The 14th and following see tions make some new regulations as to the number of votes of owners of property and rate-payers in the election of guar dians, and in other cases when the consent of the owners and rate-payers is required for any of the purposes of the 4 & 5 Wm. IV. c. 76. The 18th section empowers the commissioners, having due regard to the relative population or circumstances of any parish included in a union, to alter the number of guardians to be elected for such parish, without such consent as is required by the Act 4 & 5 Wm. IV. c. 76. Section 18 empowers the commissioners to divide parishes which have more than 20,000 inhabitants according to the cen sus then last published, into wards for the purpose of the election of guardians, and to determine the number of guardians to be elected for each ward. The 25th sec tion provides that so long as any woman's husband is beyond seas, or in custody of the law, or in confinement in a licensed house or asylum as a lunatic or idiot, all relief given to such woman or to her child or children shall be given in the same manner and subject to the same conditions as if she was a widow, but the obligation or liability of the husband in respect of such relief continues as before. The 26th section empowers the guardians of a pa rish or union to give relief to widows, under certain conditions, who at the time of their husband's death were resident with them in some place other than the parish of their legal settlement, and not situated in any union in which such parish is comprised.
The 31st section makes some provision as to the burial of paupers.
The 32nd section provides that the commissioners may combine parishes and unions in England for the audit of ac counts. By the 40th section the com missioners may, subject to certain restric tions there mentioned, combine unions, or parishes not in union, or such parishes and unions, into school districts, for the ma nagement of any class or classes of infant poor not above the age of sixteen years, being chargeable to any such parish or union, or who are deserted by their parents, or whose parents or surviving parent or guardians are consenting to the placing of such children in the school of such dis trict. By the 41st section the commis sioners are empowered to declare parishes or unions or parishes and unions within the district of the metropolitan police or the city of London, or of the city, towns, and boroughs mentioned in the schedule B annexed to the act, to be com bined into districts for the purpose of founding and managing asylums fbr the temporary relief and setting to work therein of destitute houseless poor who are not charged with any offence and who may apply for relief or become chargeable to the poor's rates within any such parish or union.
The 58th section provides for the pu nishment of persons who are guilty of misconduct in workhouses.
The other provisions of the Act are chiefly framed for the purpose of carry ing into effect the general objects already described.
One important consequence which has resulted from the better management of the poor, and which is calculated to pro duce an important effect on their future condition, is the adoption of plans for the education of children resident in houses. Under the administration of the
unamended law little or nothing was done towards this object, and in almost every case the child whose misfortune it was to be brought up at the charge of the parish, continued through life dependent upon others for subsistence, and often followed a course of systematic dishonesty. The system of moral, intellectual, and industrial training which has been to some extent engrafted upon the administration of the amended law, is calculated to bring up the children of the workhouse to be useful members of society.
It will now be convenient to state how the law stood previously to the passing of the Act 4 & 5 Wm. IV. c. 76, as to relief to the poor and settlement, and then to notice some of its leading provisions.
Every indigent person, whether a native or a foreigner, being in any dis trict of England or Wales, in which a fund is raised for the maintenance of the poor, has a right to be supplied with the necessaries of life out of that fund. This right depends on statute, and principally on the 43 Eliz. c. 2, which enacts that the churchwardens of every parish, and four, three, or two substantial house holders there, to be nominated yearly under the hands and seals of two or more justices of the peace, shall be called over seers of the poor. [OvEasziam.] Under this statute overseers could be appointed for parishes only. This proved very in sufficient, because many large and popu lous districts were not situate within any parish, and consequently no overseers whatever could be appointed for them, and also because many parishes themselves were of such magnitude that one set of overseers could not properly attend to all the poor. To supply this defect, the 13 & 14 Car. II. c. 12, authorised the ap pointment of overseers in any township that was either extra-parochial or was part of a parish so large as to require distinct sets of officers for the manage ment of its poor. Townships are some times created also by local acts.
It is the duty of these overseers to raise and administer the fund for the re• lief of the poor of their district. This fund, which is called the poor-rate, they are directed by the statute of Elizabeth in parishes, and by the statute of Car. II. in townships, to raise "weekly or otherwise, by taxation of every in habitant, parson, vicar, and other, and every occupier of lands, houses, tithes impropriate, propriations of tithes, coal mines or saleable underwoods in the said parish, in such competent sum and sums of money as they shall think fit, &c. according to the ability of the parish." These provisions are still however, even since the 4 & 5 Wm. IV. c. 76, very inadequate. Overseers cannot be appointed nor can a poor-rate be levied in any place that was not anciently either a parish or a township. Many dis tricts at the present day form no part of any parish or township ; and the poor of such districts, if unable to remove them selves to a parochial division of the coun try, where they will be entitled to relief as casual poor, may, as far as the law is concerned, perish from want. ' The rate may be made according to the exigencies of the place, which, whether parish or township, may con veniently in either case be called a parish, for any period not less than a week nor exceeding a year. The rate, which is made in writing, gives the names of the persons rated, a description of the property for which they are rated, and the amount payable by them ; it contains also a declaration, signed by the parish officers, that the rate is, to the best of their belief, correct, and that they have used their best endeavours to make it so. The rate so made and signed must be taken to two justices for their assent, which is called the allowance of the rate, and notice of such allowance must be affixed on the church doors (1 Viet. c. 45) on the Sunday following, or the rate will be entire void. This notice is called the publication of the rate.