nd Flanders; while they also collected a
vast mass of interesting evidence from our ambassadors and diplomatic
agents in different countries of Europe and America. It was upon the
report of this commission of enquiry that the act was founded for the
amendment and better administration of the laws relating to the poor
in England and Wales (4 and 5 William IV., cap. 76). A more solid
foundation for a legislative enactment could scarcely be found. The
importance of the subject fully warranted all the expense and labour
by which it was obtained.

One of the most astounding facts established by the enquiry was the
wide-spread demoralisation which had developed itself in certain
districts. Home had lost its sanctity. The ties that bind parents and
children were loosened, and natural affection gave place to intense
selfishness, which often manifested itself in the most brutal manner.
Workmen grew lazy and dishonest. Young women lost the virtue which is
not only the point of honour with their sex, but the chief support of
all other virtues. Not only women of the working classes, but in some
cases even substantial farmers' daughters, and sometimes those who
were themselves the actual owners of property, had their illegitimate
children as charges on the parish, regularly deducting the cost
of their maintenance from their poor-rate, neither they nor their
relatives feeling that to do so was any disgrace. The system must
have been fearfully vicious that produced such depravation of moral
feeling, and such a shocking want of self-respect.

Dr. Burn has given a graphic sketch of the duties of an overseer
under the old poor-law system in England. 'His office is to keep an
extraordinary watch to prevent people from coming to inhabit without
certificates; to fly to the justices to remove them. Not to let anyone
have a farm of 10 l. a year. To warn the parishioners, if they would
have servants, to hire them by the month, the week, or the day, rather
than by any way that can give them a settlement; or if they do hire
them for a year, then to endeavour to pick a quarrel with them before
the year's end, and so to get rid of them. To maintain their poor as
cheaply as they possibly can, and not to lay out twopence in prospect
of any future good, but only to serve the present necessity. To
bargain with some sturdy person to take them by the lump, who yet is
not intended to take them, but to hang over them _in terrorem_, if
they shall complai