adopted. In that year, three hundred and seventysix of the smaller monasteries were suppressed by Henry VIII.; and others were confiscated by him in subsequent years. Many who had received relief, or support in these institutions, were thus compelled to seek for aid, or for subsistence elsewhere. It was therefore enacted that all governors of shires, cities, hundreds, hamlets, and parishes, should make provision for the poor by receiving charitable alms, so that no poor person should go a begging. Thus the relieving of the poor was taken from the ecclesiastical, and given to the civil power. Nor was this the only extraordinary provision in this case. 'Persons making "open dole," or giving money in alms otherwise than to the poor boxes in each parish, were to forfeit ten times the value.' Thus, all almsgiving, except through the parish poor boxes, was not only forbidden; but every act of free charity was declared by the law to be criminal, or at least punishable, in proportion to its approximation to the liberality of Christian benevolence. I know not what was the extent of poverty at that time in England. But, allowing for great exaggeration in the statement, it must have been fearfully extensive and aggravated, since we are told, that, during the reign of Henry VIII., a period of thirtyseven years, and when the population was scarcely more than a third of its present number, seventytwo thousand persons were executed for theft and robbery, and, that the prisoners for debt and crime amounted at one time to sixty thousand persons. Sturdy beggars, for the first offence, were whipt. On a second conviction, they lost an ear. And on the third, they were executed as felons. In the succeeding reign, the Protector Somerset, though remarkable for his popularity, seemed determined, by direct force and terror, to extirpate vagabonds. The first act of his administration declared, that if any person shall apprehend a runagate, who had lived disorderly for three days, and shall take him before two justices, the vagrant was to be branded with the letter V, and was to be adjudged a slave to the person who had apprehended him for two years. This person might also beat, chain, and put the vagrant to labor never so vile, and might feed him upon bread and water, and refuse him meat. If the vagrant should absent himself fourteen days, he was to be branded on the cheek with the letter S, (slave) and was to be a slave forever. If he ran away a second time, he was to be executed. For the honor of human nature, this law continued in operation but two years.' But it not only proves the desperate state of the country, but intimates much, I think, to excite suspicion of the moral tendencies of poor laws. At least, it goes far to show, that poor laws had contributed nothing to the suppression of pauperism. In 1563, the 5th of Elizabeth, an act was passed to appoint collectors of voluntary contributions, who should also distribute them weekly, so that none should sit a begging. If any parishioner obstinately refused to pay reasonably for the relief of the poor, the justices were empowered to tax him a reasonable weekly sum; upon his refusal to pay which, he was to be imprisoned. And if any parish had more impotent poor than it was able to maintain, the justices were empowered to license them to beg in the hundreds of their country. At length, after other enactments for the regulation of assessments for the poor, and for the appointment of overseers, the last great act of Elizabeth's life was the pauper law of the 43d of her reign,' which has since been the basis of the poor laws of England. This law is immensely in advance of all that had preceded it upon the subject. It was as wise, perhaps, as a law could have been, the object of which was, a legal provision for the poor. Many are the revisions under which it has passed during the last two hundred years, and by none of them has it been improved. The population of England, at the time of the passage of this law, is estimated to have been between four and a half, and five millions. The first assessment, in 1601, for carrying it into effect, that is, for the relief of the impotent poor, and for setting the poor to work, was £200,000. In the year 1700, when the population was about five and a half millions, the poor rates had increased to £1,000,000. And now they are advanced to nearly £8,000,000, or $35,000,000; with a beggary as importunate as want and desperation can make it, even amidst the most extraordinary prosperity; and with an amount and extent of crime, which make even this beggary a concern of secondary consideration. Now I do not ascribe all this crime and poverty to poor-laws, and poor-rates. Far otherwise. But I may ask, whether there is any ground whatever in the space of history over which we have passed, for the belief that poor-laws and poor-rates have diminished pauperism in England? I may ask, if these successive enactments, and provisions, do not indicate very unfavorably for the character and tendencies of poor-laws? And I may also ask, if it be not an unquestionable fact, that, of late years at least, these laws have increased the number and sufferings of the poor, by acting as a bounty at once upon population among the poor, and upon the oppressions of their employers? Is it said that these are results, not of the law itself, but of the mode of its administration? I answer, that the law never was, and it never can be, well adininistered. It carries in itself, and they are inseparable from it, the principles of all the evils which have come from its mal-administration. The language of the facts I have adduced seems to me to be very unequivocal. The provisions of the fortythird of Elizabeth, and the laws of the founders of our commonwealth, I have no doubt, were intended for good. But they were direct violations of a principle, which is not to be entrenched upon by human legislatures; the principle, I mean, that direct and authoritative prescriptions and enforcements of moral duty belong only to God. Religion has never flourished, except in the cases in which it has been left as free by man, as it has been left by God. And charity to man, as a vital element of religion, must be left as free as love to God, or it will never flourish. The regulating power of these principles is within themselves; or, they are regulated by causes which are beyond the reach of human authority. Attempt by law the enforcement of either, and results will follow, they have never failed to follow, which will rebuke the daring presumption. Happy will it be if they shall prevent its recurrence. - The contrast, in this view of them, is very striking between England and Scotland. In the latter country, we are told,' poor rates were comparatively unknown even when mendicity was ten times more prevalent than at present;' and they continue to be comparatively unknown there to this day. It was indeed most happy for Scotland, that in the time of the extremest wants and degradation of her poor, resort was not had to legislative interference for them. 'In 1745, the state of the country was rude beyond conception; and the common people, clothed in the coarsest garb, and starving on the meanest fare, lived in despicable huts with their cattle. In the Highlands, in 1760, the condition of the inhabitants was, if possible, worse than that of the Lowlands. There was scarcely any variety of wretchedness with which they were not obliged to struggle, or rather, to which they were not obliged to submit. To such an extremity were they frequently reduced, that they had to bleed their cattle that they might subsist for a time upon the blood, (boiled); and the inhabitants of the glens and valleys repaired in crowds to the shore, a distance of three or four miles, to pick up the scanty provisions which the shell-fish afforded them. Their houses were commonly wretched, dirty hovels, built with stones and mud, and thatched with fern and turf; without chimneys; filled with smoke; black with soot ; having low doors, and small holes for windows, with wooden shutters; or, in place of these, often stopped with turf, straw, or fragments of old clothes.''The poor, half starved animals, through mere weakness, often could not rise of themselves.' 'At this period, too, mendicity was extremely prevalent; and the labors of the peasantry, during harvest, were every now and then interrupted by the necessity of carrying crippled beggars from one farm to another.' 'Now,' on the other hand, the laborers are universally well fed, and well clothed. Their cottages are comfortable, and they are all in the enjoyment of luxuries that were formerly never tasted even by rich proprietors. At the same time, also, that mendicity is almost entirely unknown, poor rates have been introduced only in a few instances, and are in all cases exceedingly moderate. At present, indeed, we believe there is not a parish in the whole province of Galloway, assessed for the sup |