XLII. 1845. a much greater one-namely, the bringing them under CHAP. the direct control of a body much inferior in acquirement, and much more inflamed in passion, than any foreign hierarchy-the Romish clergy of Ireland. Half a century ago, when the priests had all been educated at a foreign seminary, the Catholic incumbent of a parish in Ireland was often the best informed, and sometimes the most liberal person in it. It would be no easy matter to find such a phenomenon now. Educated at Maynooth, instructed by its local teachers, and contracted in their ideas and information to the narrow and impassioned field of Irish contention, the priests have become less informed, and, as a necessary consequence, more bigoted. Liberality, which was formerly advancing with rapid strides among them, has been almost entirely blighted by this calamitous change, and Great Britain has found to its cost that there is an evil greater than that of the priesthood being educated at a foreign seminary, and that is, being educated at their own. 26. Law Bill: A measure, which excited much less attention at the time than these fiercely debated Irish questions, but Scotch Poorwas attended with unmitigated blessings in the end, was History of the new Poor-Law Bill, introduced by Lord Advocate the subject. M'Neill, for Scotland, which passed into law in this session of Parliament. Like England, and all other countries which embraced the Protestant faith, Scotland at the Reformation had experienced the immense evils arising from the suppression of the streams of charity which in former days had flowed from the walls of the monastic establishments. Left destitute by this calamitous change, in the midst of a rude and distracted country, the poor in Scotland were reduced to the lowest point of misery, insomuch that a great and comprehensive measure for their relief was in a manner forced upon the Legislature. This was done by the Act 1579, c. 74, which, nearly * Now the Lord Justice-General-1857. XLII. 1845. CHAP. contemporary with the 42d of Elizabeth, the foundation of the English poor-laws, and brought about by the same necessity, was mainly copied from the English statute, and fully imbued with its humane and benevolent spirit. By this Act, the poor, the sick, the aged, the indigent, the impotent, and those who have not wherewithal to maintain themselves, were declared entitled to legal relief; and the heritors in each parish were ordered to meet and assess themselves for their relief, the one-half to be laid on the landlords, and the other on the tenants. 27. Causes of the law be It is impossible that words can be found indicating a more humane intention than those in this statute; but ing evaded. unfortunately the whole intentions of the Legislature were frustrated, and Scotland was left, practically speaking, without any system of parochial relief at all, in consequence of an unfortunate decision of the Court of Session in regard to the administration of it. Repeated statutes and royal proclamations had enjoined the sheriffs and justices to put the law into full execution; but the administration of it was intrusted, in the first instance, to the heritors and kirk-session, or churchwardens, of each parish, who formed a little court which was to sit in judgment on each claim for relief preferred against the parish. Unhappily the Court of Session took up the idea that this administrative body constituted a court of law in the legal sense of the word, and therefore that their decisions could be reviewed only in the Court of Session. Thus were the sheriffs, the ordinary judges of the counties, ousted of their jurisdiction in this matter; and as a decision of the Court of Session could not be obtained in less than eighteen months, and at a cost of at least £60 or £70, the review of that supreme court was of course, in the case of paupers, practically speaking, out of the question. Thus the heritors and kirk-session, the very parties who were to bear the assessment, were rendered virtually judges without appeal in their own cause. The result was that which ever has been and ever will be the XLII. 1845. case where such an absurd anomaly in judicial procedure CHAP. is permitted: they decided almost every case substantially in their own favour. They did not absolutely resist all claims for parochial relief, but they doled it out with so sparing a hand that, practically speaking, it was no relief at all. A shilling a-week to a widow with three or four children was deemed an ample allowance, and in most places even this pittance was refused, for in five-sixths of the parishes of Scotland, though they all abounded with paupers, there was no rate levied at all. So far had this gone that it was universally thought in England, and even believed in many parts of Scotland itself, that there were no poor-laws to the north of the Tweed. 28. this at last As long as Scotland was a purely agricultural and pastoral country, this state of things was not attended The evils of with the evils which might have been anticipated. The become inlandlords were generally resident; the collections at the tolerable. church-doors for the poor were tolerably liberal; and a strong feeling of pride existed among the peasantry to endure any privations rather than apply themselves, or allow their relations to apply, for public charity. But with the spread of manufactures, the increase of wealth, and the rise of great towns, this auspicious social condition of the people came to a termination. A large proportion of the poor in all the great towns were Irish, who were far from their relations and utterly destitute; and the habits of civilised life and frequent migration of the working classes from one place to another, rendered them almost all entirely unknown to the affluent around them when overtaken by misfortune. These evils, which had been long felt and bemoaned by the humane, though stoutly denied by the selfish, were brought to a climax by the long-continued distress in the country from 1837 to 1842, during which the poor of Scotland, almost entirely unprovided for, underwent miseries probably unparalleled in any Christian land, for they had the evils of civilisation without its advantages. Fortunately these evils, and particularly XLII. 1842. * CHAP. the connection of continued fever, as well as other epidemics, with the condition of the poor in the larger towns, at length attracted the attention of some members of the medical profession; which was the more important, as some of the most benevolent members both of the clerical and legal professions, trusting too much to speculative views as to the causes of destitution, and less conversant with the realities of life in the lowest parts of our large towns, set themselves in decided opposition to any change in the old Scotch system of merely voluntary relief. On the other hand, a variety of facts tended to prove, that in a complex state of society the system of voluntary relief is never sufficient to meet the increase of destitution, which the varying modes of human existence, and the powers of procreation granted to the human species, naturally involve; that the increase of population, instead of being checked, as Malthus and others had supposed, by the increase of sin and misery, goes on in an increased ratio-under any circumstances admitting of human existence-as the examples of Ireland and the Highlands of Scotland too surely indicated, simply by reason of the habitual recklessness of character, and absence of all artificial wants, in people brought up in a state of extreme poverty; that the natural result of this state of things is great suffering, and sometimes absolute destruction of great part of such populations, by famine and epidemic diseases; and that this result is always to be apprehended when the richer members of such a people are accustomed to think it wisdom and charity to withdraw their attention from such sufferings, and "pass by on the other side;" and that in such a state of society the only security which experience has shown to be effectual for applying remedies to the early stage of such evils, is that which is given by making Christian charity a *See particularly Dr Chalmers and the late Lord Pitmilly. See Proposed Alterations in the Scottish Poor-Law considered and commented on: Edinburgh, 1840. XLII. 1845. part and parcel of the law, whereby assistance may be CHAP. claimed by those whose habits will otherwise inevitably degenerate into recklessness and profligacy, and systematic inspection may be depended on for counteracting idleness and imposture. Fortunately these evils attracted the attention of one who had the heart to feel, the courage to assist, and the ability to carry through, what was necessary to provide a remedy for them. DR ALISON, who had devoted benevolence unbounded, and talents of no ordinary kind, to the alleviation of the suffering with which he was surrounded in the city of Edinburgh, wrote several pamphlets, portraying in such striking and such truthful colours the destitute condition of the Scotch poor, that it at last attracted the notice of Government. A commission was issued, which took evidence and reported in favour of the change, and a bill was introduced by the Lord Advocate, founded on its recommendations, which, after encountering great opposition, at length passed into 202. a law.1 1 Ann. Reg. 1845, 201, 29. of the bill. By this bill the axe was so far laid to the root of the evil, as that irresponsible administration of the poor laws Provisions was taken out of the hands of the heritors and kirk-sessions, who had hitherto conducted it. A Board of Supervision was appointed at Edinburgh, with the able and accomplished Oriental diplomatist, SIR JOHN M'NEILL, at its head, to superintend generally the administration of the poor over the whole country, and with power, at very little expense, to fix the rate of aliment to be awarded to paupers. A power was given to the sheriffs to review the decisions of the parochial boards in admitting or refusing to put applicants on the roll, and to decide litigated points between parish and parish. Parish boards were appointed to be elected by the rate-payers above £5 a-year, who administered the whole poor-laws in the first instance, and various provisions were made for the maintenance of lunatics, the education of pauper children, for medical attendance to the poor, and building poor-houses |