sure, and be subject to a fine of 201. Scotch, to the use of the poor of that parish, for which penalty the said provost, bailies, and judges are empowered to distrain.

9th. If any person, being able to further this charitable work, shall obstinately refuse to contribute to the relief of the poor, or discourage others from so doing, such obstinate and wilful person, being called before the provost and bailies within burgh, or the judges in landward parishes, and convicted thereof by testimony of two honest witnesses his neighbours, shall upon application of the provost and bailies, or the judge, as the case may be, be imprisoned in such place as the king and council shall appoint, and there remain until he be content to obey the order of his said parish.

10th. If the aged and impotent poor persons, not being so diseased, lame, or impotent but that they may work in some manner of work, shall by the overseers in any burgh or parish be appointed to work, and yet refuse the same-" then first the refuser is to be scourged and put in the stocks, and for a second fault is to be punished as a vagabond."

11th. If any beggar's bairns (male or female), being above the age of five years and under fourteen, shall be liked of by any subject of the realm of honest estatesuch person may have the bairn by direction of the provost and bailies within burgh, or the judge in landward parishes, if he be a man-child to the age of 24 years, and if a woman-child to the age of 28 years. And if they depart or be taken or enticed from their master's or mistress's service, the master or mistress shall have the like action and remedy as for their "feit servant or apprentice, as well against the bairn as against the taker or enticer thereof.

12th. In cases where the collecting of money cannot be had, and that it would be overgreat a burthen to the collectors to gather victuals, meat and drink, or other

The poor

licensed to

things for relief of the poor, the provost and bailies in burghs, and the judges in landward parishes, by advice of certain of the most honest parishioners, may give licence under their hands to so many of the said poor people, or such others as they shall think good, to ask and gather the charitable beg. alms of the parishioners at their own houses, "so as always it be specially appointed and agreed how the poor of that parish shall be sustained within the same, and not to be chargeable to others nor troublesome to strangers."

13th. And seeing that by reason of the present Act, the prisons irons and stocks of every head burgh of the shire and other towns, are like to be filled with a greater number of prisoners than before has been accustomed, in so far as the said vagabonds and other offenders are to be committed to the common prison of the shire or town where they are taken, the same prisons being in towns where there is great number of poor people, more than they are well able to sustain and relieve, and so the prisoners are like to perish in default of sustenance,-It is therefore directed that the expenses of the prisoners shall be paid out of, and be a part of, the common distribution and weekly alms of the parish where he or she was apprehended, allowing to each person daily one pound of oat-bread and water to drink, for payment whereof the committer of him or her to prison shall give security or make present payment.

14th. And finally, the sheriffs stewards and bailies, and the lords of regalities and their bailies throughout the realm, are charged and enjoined to see the present Act put into due execution in all points within their jurisdictions, as they will answer to God and the king.

This comprehensive Act seems to have been prepared with all the care and precision which the subject demanded, and when contrasted with the previous

legislation, enables us to judge of the large use which was made of the 14th Elizabeth, cap. 5,* in the framing of it, and it may be added, also of the previous Act of 1574. The Acts prior to these are brief and general in their provisions, but these two are full and precise, and in their spirit and general import are indeed almost identical with the English Act, allowance being made for certain shades of difference in the circumstances of the two countries, and for the fact that the progress of legislation, including that having reference to the poor, was in England considerably in advance of that which existed in Scotland. The present Act however brought the legislation of the two countries nearly on a par with respect to our immediate subject, and may be taken as a proof of the intercourse and sympathy subsisting between them, as well as of the readiness with which the Scottish parliament availed itself of the example and experience of its southern neighbour. In this Act the Gipsies, or Egyptians, are first mentioned. They had been long known in England, and severe enactments were passed against them in the reigns of Henry the Eighth, Mary, and Elizabeth, but this is the first notice taken of them by the Scottish legislature.

The general approximation of this Act of 1579 to the English statutes, and its close similarity to The 14th Elizabeth, (which Act has been commented on in the 'History of the English Poor Law,'") renders lengthened comment upon it here unnecessary, notwithstanding the interest attached to it as constituting the basis of the Scottish Poor Law. Its importance with reference to our present object consists in the comprehensiveness of its provisions, which go so much beyond anything that had been enacted before. It directs inquiry to be made into the number and circumstances of the poor, both in towns and rural parishes, and it

See History of the English Poor Law,' vol. i. pp. 161–166.

empowers the magistrates to "tax and stent the inhabitants for their support. It fixes seven years as the term of residence for establishing parochial or burghal chargeability. It provides for the appointment of overseers and collectors, and for punishing poor persons who, being able, refuse to work-thereby implying that they are to be set at work. It also imposes a penalty on persons for relieving unlicensed beggars, and it provides for the putting out of pauper children to service. These are all important provisions, going far towards the formation of a practical system of relief. They are indeed, as is before observed, nearly identical with the 14th Elizabeth; but there is one material distinction between the two Acts-that of Elizabeth more distinctly inculcates the policy of as far as possible coupling employment with relief, and this not for the infirm and partially disabled poor alone, but it directs if any surplus money should remain after the impotent poor are provided for, "that the justices shall place and settle to work the rogues and vagabonds that shall be able (that is, the idle and able-bodied poor), there to be holden to work by the oversight of the overseers, to get their livings and to live and be sustained only upon their labour and travail." •

upon

If the "labour and travail" thus to be provided were of a repulsive or penal nature, and if it were enforced convicted rogues and vagabonds only, there could be no objection in principle to such a provision. So likewise with regard to the employment of the infirm poor directed by Elizabeth's Act, if these were so far disabled by age, disease, or other infirmity, as to be unable to support themselves, but were still able to do work of some kind, there could be no objection to their being employed in such a way as they are fitted for in easement of the charge for their maintenance. The

See History of the English Poor Law,' vol. i. p. 165.

real danger in both cases, whether as regards the ablebodied or the partially disabled is, lest the employment conjoined with maintenance which is thus provided, should induce an unhealthy feeling of dependence in the persons occupied in the one and partaking of the other, and that the repulsiveness of the labour would not counteract the attractiveness of the subsistence. There is obviously less of such danger to be apprehended in the case of the infirm poor, although there is some even with them. But with the able-bodied the danger is imminent, as has been shown by the whole tenour of our English experience. The results in England have proved beyond a possibility of doubt, that eleemosynary aid of any kind or in any form, if unaccompanied by some sufficient test for establishing the fact of necessity, invariably leads to an increase of the evil it was intended to remedy. Against this danger however, the Scottish legislators appear to have been always sufficiently on their guard.

1579.

James VI.,

October 26,

No. 10.

About the same time with the preceding Act, two others were passed closely connected with the cap. 72. feelings and habits of the people, and therefore requiring to be noticed. The reading of the Bible in a Scotch or English translation had been authoritatively permitted in 1543, in despite of the opposition of the Romish clergy." But now an Act was passed, directing" that all gentlemen householders and others worth 300 marks of yearly rent, and all substantial yeomen or burgesses being householders, and esteemed worth 5007. in lands or goods, shall have a Bible and a Psalm-book in the vulgar language in their houses, for the better instruction of themselves and their families in the knowledge of God, under a penalty of 107." And the provost and bailies in boroughs, and persons holding the king's commission in landward

P See Tytler's History of Scotland,' vol. i. p. 326.