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ART. I. Report from the Select Committee on the Poor-Laws, with the Minutes of Evidence taken before the Committee

ކ

p. 261 302

II. Beppo, a Venetian Story
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311

337

363

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By the Abbé J. A.

Dubois, Missionary in the Mysore

377

403

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XI. Report on the Management of the Poor of Glasgow.
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Supplementary Report of the Select Committee of the
House of Commons, appointed to consider the Poor

Laws

Quarterly List of New Publications

Index

433

453

475

498

502

518

ERRATA IN THIS VOLUME.

Page 41, line 38, for jug beef read jerked beef.

144,

241,

27, for Calcutta read Bombay.
20, for Gonsalez read Gonsalvi.

433, last line, for Cochin read Cochinchina.

In pages 443 and 449, the difference between the natural and
monopoly prices of tea are greatly underrated. The materials
of a more accurate calculation, extracted from English and
American prices current, are contained in p. 452.

THE

EDINBURGH REVIEW,

FEBRUARY, 1818.

N°. LVIII.

ART. I. Report from the Select Committee on the Poor-Laws, with the Minutes of Evidence taken before the Committee. Ordered by the House of Commons to be printed, July 4, 1817.

Ir appears from this important document, that the principle

of compulsory provision for the poor, took its rise with the enactment of very harsh and barbarous laws for the suppression of vagrancy;-that by these laws, which were directed against strong beggars, persons whole and mighty in body,' such an offence was visited with slavery, mutilations, and death-that permission to beg, however, was extended to the impotent poor within certain districts-and that at length, with a view to prevent the burden of their support from falling exclusively on the charitable, an act was passed in the 5th of Elizabeth, whereby the Justices in each parish were empowered, along with the churchwardens, to assess for a weekly sum those who were unwilling to contribute. By a statute of the 43d of the same reign, those persons were further vested with the power, first, to provide for the gratuitous relief of those who were unable to work; and, secondly, to find work for those who were able, by giving them employment, or supplying them with the necessary tools and materials.

This statute continues to be the fundamental and operative law of the realm, on this important subject: And the object of the very interesting Report now before us, is to expose the effect which, after the lapse of about two centuries, has resulted from the administration of this law on the comfort and character of the people of England.

We have often imagined, that, previous to those enactments,

VOL. XXIX. NO. 58.

S

the whole of the matter to which they relate had come under the discussion of two political reasoners; and that one of them had merely expressed his doubts as to the efficacy of this compulsory provision, while the other felt quite assured of its final. success in diminishing the amount of human suffering, if not in banishing all the miseries of extreme indigence from the land. Even in such a situation, we conceive, and anterior to all experience, there are many considerations which might have occured to the former, and disposed him to be slow of confidence as to the anticipated good that was to flow from its operation. The very circumstance of its being untried, might lead him to suspect and to hesitate. And, independently of this general considera-tion, which always weighs so powerfully with men of a practical understanding, he would probably see, in the proposed measure, an attempt to wrest from the hands of Nature the management of a case, for which, by certain principles implanted in the constitution of man, she had already provided. He might see in it a tendency to enfeeble, if not altogether to suppress, the operation of these principles. He might fear lest this interference on the part of the State should relax the natural excitements to industry and foresight, and thus multiply the instances of wretchedness beyond its power of relieving them. Or, that it might relax the obligations of relationship; and thus, for the substitution of certain regulated services, withdraw from the helpless the far kindlier and more effective services of their own kindred or their own offspring. Or, that it might relax the sympathy and mutual dependence of immediate neighbours, and thus intercept those numerous, though unobserved supplies of beneficence, which, in parishes where assessments are unknown, still make up a sum of charity most honourable to the character of the lower orders. Or, that it might reduce the private ministrations of the wealthy, who, by the one act of a yearly contribution, might feel themselves acquitted of all those secret attentions and liberalities which the setting up of this legal machinery evidently tends to supersede. Or, finally, that by the publicity thus given to the relief of want, every dispensation of it would be made greatly more painful to the more delicate and deserving class of sufferers, who, rather than brave an exposure so humiliating, might choose to endure in silence; and that, with nothing to depend on but such compassion as the system in question has diverted away from them-with no chance of being discovered by the charitable, but through such inquiries as this system has superseded-with no source from which to look for any alleviation but such funds as this system is impairing by its perpetual and constantly augmenting encroachments: And.