and declared, that no such person so hired as aforesaid, shall be adjudged or deemed to have a good settlement in any such parish or township, unless such person shall continue and abide in the same service during the space of one whole year. ."* Being hired for a year when unmarried and childless, and serving a year in the same service, gains a settlement. But soldiers, seamen, or any artificer employed in the king's service, are expressly prevented from a settlement till after they have been discharged from the king's service. The settlement of a servant and apprentice is where they last reside forty days in their master's employment; and where they do not reside forty days successively at one place, but alternately in two or more parishes, and more than forty days upon the whole in each in the course of a year, the settlement is in that parish in which they sleep the last night. But it BY MARRIAGE.-The wife takes her husband's settlement. has hitherto been rather doubtful, what shall be deemed a sufficient marriage, so as that a woman shall gain a settlement thereby; and the courts having always been favourable in admitting marriages, although not strictly solemnized according to the laws of the church; now, however, a great distinction is made between marriages solemnized before the 25th of March, 1754, and after that time, for, by the said statute, it is enacted+ that after 25th March, 1754, all marriages (except in Scotland, and except the marriages of Jews and Quakers, where both the parties are Jews or Quakers respectively) which shall be solemnized without license or publication of banns, or in any other place than a church or public chapel, (unless by special license from the archbishop of Canterbury,) or without the consent of parents or guardians, (where either of the parties, not being a widower or widow, is under the age of twenty-one,) shall be null and void to all intents and purposes whatsoever. It is a good general rule, that a woman marrying a husband who has a known settlement, shall follow the husband's; and it appears to be agreed, that a wife cannot gain a separate and distinct settlement from her husband, during their marriage; neither does a woman, marrying a husband who has no known settlement, lose her former settlement which she possessed before her marriage. A woman, marrying a foreigner who dies, must be sent to the place of her own settlement before marriage. A woman, marrying a man who is settled in another parish, changes her own settlement, the law not permitting the separation of man and wife. But if the man has no settlement, hers 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 his inability, the wife and her children may be removed to her maiden settlement, but it seems * 8 and 9 W. and M. c. 30. † 26 Geo. II. c. 33. ully determined that they cannot be separated or removed from the iusband. BY NOTICE. For a stranger to gain a settlement in a parish, he is equired to give a written notice to a churchwarden, which notice must ›e publicly read in the church next Sunday after. If after this publication he is allowed to reside forty days within the parish, he then acquires a legal right of settlement. It is the overseer's business to prevent this, by ejecting him, if necessary, before he resides the proper time. After all, this kind of settlement, by continuing forty days, after publication of a written notice, is very seldom obtained, and the design of the acts* is not so much for the gaining of settlements as for preventing them, by persons coming clandestinely into a parish; for the giving and publishing a notice makes ejectment compulsatory on the parish. But if a person's situation is such, that it is doubtful whether he is actually removable or not, he shall, by giving notice, compel the parish either to allow him an uncontested settlement, by suffering him to remain forty days, or by removing him to try the right. But it is now enacted,† that no person in future shall gain a settlement by such notice. BY PARISH RATES." If any person who shall come to inhabit in any town or parish shall be charged with, and pay his share towards, the public taxes or levies of the said town or parish, he shall be adjudged to have a legal settlement in the same, though no notice in writing has been delivered and published." But by a subsequent statute,§ "no person after the 22d June, 1795, who shall come into any parish, township, or place, shall gain any settlement therein, by being charged with, or paying, his share towards the public taxes or levies of such places, for and on account of, or in respect of any tenement not being of the yearly value of £10." The tenement must consist of a house, or building, or land, within the parish, or both bona fide hired by him at £10 for the term of one whole year. The rent must be paid by the person hiring, and the whole of the land, as Ewell as the house, must be situate within the same parish or township; and unless the whole of the rent has been actually paid, the tenant does not gain a settlement. BY SERVING A PARISH OFfice. "But if any person shall come to inhabit in any town or parish, shall for himself and on his own account execute any public annual office or charge in the said town or parish during one whole year, he shall be adjudged to have a legal settlement in the same, though no such notice in writing be delivered and published."|| Executing by legal appointment any parochial office, for a whole year in the *3 W. and M. c. 11, s. 3, 5. † 35 Geo. III. c. 101. 3 W. and M. c. 11, s. 6. 3 W. c. 11 s. 6. parish, as churchwarden, &c., is equivalent to notice, and gains a settleager t ment, if coupled with forty days' residence. BY RENTING L.10 PER YEAR.-"On complaint within forty days, by after any person shall come to settle in any tenement under ten pounds a year, two justices may remove him to where he was last legally settled for gh forty days."*"No person who shall come into any parish by certificate, shall be adjudged by any act whatsoever, to have gained a legal settlement in such parish, unless he shall really and bona fide take a lease of a tene ment of the yearly value of ten pounds, or shall execute an annual office in such parish." Renting a tenement of the annual rent of ten pounds, and residing forty days in the parish, gains a settlement without notice, upon the principle of having sufficient substance to gain credit for such a house. And it is not necessary that the renting should be for a year; if the annual value of ten pounds be taken for two months or forty days only, it is sufficient to gain a settlement. Neither is it necessary that there should be a house on the premises, the renting of after-grass or pasturage will be sufficient. On the 2d July, 1819, the following act passed both houses, to amend the laws respecting the settlement of the poor so far as regards renting tenements: "Whereas many disputes and controversies have arisen respecting the settling of poor people in parishes in England by the renting of tenements, be it enacted, &c., that from and after the passing of this act, no person shall acquire a settlement in any parish or township maintaining its own poor in England, by or by reason of his or her dwelling for forty days in any tenement rented by such person, unless such tenement shall consist of a house or building, or of land, within such parish or township, or of both bona fide hired by such person, at and for the sum of ten pounds a-year at the least, for the term of one whole year; nor unless such house or building shall be held, and such land occupied, and the rent for the same actually paid, for the term of one whole year at the least, by the person hiring them; nor unless the whole of such land shall be situate within the same parish or township as the house wherein the person hiring such land shall dwell and inhabit."+ BY ESTATE. If a person possesses a freehold, and residing on it forty days, although under ten pounds a-year, he cannot be removed from it. And the courts have decided, that where a person has an estate for life, or an estate of inheritance of his own, and residing therein forty days, however small the value may be, in case it be acquired by act of law or of a third person, as by descent, gift, devise, &c., it is a sufficient settlement; but if a man acquire it by his own act, as by purchase, then, unless the consideration advanced be bona fide thirty pounds, it is no settlement for any * 13 and 14 Char. II. c. 12. 59 Geo. III c. 50. iger time than the person shall inhabit it. He cannot be removed from I own property, but he cannot acquire a permanent and lasting settleent by any trifling or fraudulent purchase. REMOVALS. The law is equally explicit regarding removals as it is on e right of settlements, but the ingenuity of lawyers and the blunders of norant overseers have raised an infinite number of difficulties, and occaoned an enormous waste of parish funds, which have given plentiful cupation to the judges and juries of the court of King's Bench. The atute of Charles II., which has been so repeatedly quoted, is the foundaon on which all orders of removal are or ought to be established. It is follows: "Whereas, by reason of some defects in the law, poor people re not restrained from going from one parish to another, and therefore ndeavour to settle themselves in those parishes where there is the best ock, the largest commons or wastes to build cottages, and the most for hem to burn and destroy, and when they have consumed it, then remove o another parish, and at last become rogues and vagabonds; it is enacted, hat it shall be lawful, upon complaint made by the churchwardens or overeers of the poor of any parish, to any justice of the peace, within forty days after any such person coming so to settle in any tenement under the yearly value of ten pounds, for any two justices of the peace, of the division where any person that is likely to become chargeable to the parish shall come to inhabit, by their warrant to remove and convey such person to such parish where he was last legally settled, unless he give sufficient security for the discharge of the said parish, to be allowed by the said justices."* "And if such person shall refuse to go, or shall not remain in such parish where he ought to be settled, but shall return of his own accord to the parish from whence he was removed, one justice may send him to the house of correction, there to be punished as a vagabond."+ There is, however, a power of appealing against an order of removal: "All persons who think themselves aggrieved by any such judgment of the said two justices, may appeal to the justices of the peace of the said county at their next quarter sessions, who shall do them justice according to the merits of their cause."‡ And "the appeal against any order of removal of any person, shall be had, prosecuted, and determined, at the general or quarter sessions of the peace for the county, division, or riding, wherein the parish, township, or place, from which such poor person shall be removed, doth lie, and not elsewhere."§ All persons not settled as above may be removed to their own parishes, by two justices of the peace, on the overseer's complaint, if they shall judge them likely to become chargeable to the parish into which they have intruded, unless they are in a way of gaining a legal settlement, as by annual 13, 14 Char. II. c. 12. † 17 Geo. II. 1 13. 14 Char. II. § 8 and 9 W. and M. rent of ten pounds, or by service, because in either of these cases they are not removable. And in all other cases, if the parish to which they belong will grant them a certificate, acknowledging them to be their oren parishioners, they cannot be removed merely because they are likely to become chargeable, but only when they become actually chargeable. But such certificated persons cannot gain a settlement by any of the foregoing means, unless by renting a tenement of ten pounds per annum, or by serving an annual office in the parish; neither can an apprentice or servant to such certificated person gain a settlement by serving them.* OF THE POOR'S RATE." The churchwardens and overseers of the poor of every parish, or the greater part of them, shall raise weekly, or otherwise, (by taxation of every inhabitant, parson, vicar, and other, and of every occupier of land, houses, tithes impropriate, propriatory of tithes, coal mines, or saleable underwoods in the said parish,) a convenient stock of flax, hemp, wool, thread, iron, and other ware, and stuff to set the poor on work, and also competent sums for the necessary relief of the lame, impotent, old, blind, and such other among them, being poor, as are not able to work, and also for putting out poor children apprentices." "The churchwardens and overseers shall cause public notice to be given, in the church, of every rate for the relief of the poor allowed by the justices, the next Sunday after such allowance; and no rate shall be reputed sufficient to be collected, till after such notice given." Some parishes are rated on valuations taken in the reign of Charles I., when the value of property was very different from what it is at present, and therefore a rate of five, ten, or twelve shillings in the pound, for the maintenance of the poor, is not really so great as it appears, as the rate is calculated on the valued rent, and not on the actual value at present. The rate, however, when once made and duly published, may be levied by distress, against which the law allows an appeal. And it is reasonable that the party should be heard in his own defence before the justices, and not be left to the private resentment of the parish officers, who may sell a man's goods without sufficient cause. The oath of refusal must be made before the justices, showing cause why a distress should not be granted, such as that the rate was not regularly allowed, or was not published in the church, or that notice of appeal had not been given, or that neither demand nor refusal had been made, and such like. When a worthless husband deserts his wife or family, they are immediately provided for by the parish, and a reward advertised for the apprehension of the fugitive, whose goods and chattels are forfeited to the parish; and if the family thus deserted have any legal claims, the * Burn's Justice, Art. Poor.-Blackstone's Commentary.-Professor Christian's Notes. † 43 Eliz. 17 Geo. II. c. 3. |