n to the justices for want of maintenance. To
send them out into the country a begging. To bind out poor children
apprentices, no matter to whom, or to what trade; but to take special
care that the master live in another parish. To move heaven and earth
if any dispute happen about a settlement; and, in that particular,
to invert the general rule, and stick at no expense. To pull down
cottages: _to drive out as many inhabitants, and admit as few, as they
possibly can; that is, to depopulate the parish, in order to lessen
the poor's-rate_. To be generous, indeed, sometimes, in giving a
portion with the mother of a bastard child to the reputed father,
on condition that he will marry her, or with a poor widow, _always
provided that the husband_ be settled elsewhere; or if a poor man with
a large family happen to be industrious, they will charitably assist
him in taking a farm in some neighbouring parish, and give him 10 l.
to pay his first year's rent with, that they may thus for ever get rid
of him and his progeny.'

The effect of this system was actually to depopulate many parishes.
The author of a pamphlet on the subject, Mr. Alcock, stated that the
gentlemen were led by this system to adopt all sorts of expedients
to hinder the poor from marrying, to discharge servants in their
last quarter, to evict small tenants, and pull down cottages; so
that several parishes were in a manner depopulated, while England
complained of a want of useful hands for agriculture, manufactories,
for the land and sea service. 'When the minister marries a couple,' he
said, 'he rightly prays that they may be fruitful in the procreation
of children; but most of the parishioners pray for the very contrary,
and perhaps complain of him for marrying persons, that, should they
have a family of children, might likewise become chargeable.' Arthur
Young also described the operation of the law in his time, in
clearing off the people, and causing universally 'an open war against
cottages.' Gentlemen bought them up whenever they had an opportunity,
and immediately levelled them with the ground, lest they should become
'nests of beggars' brats.' The removal of a cottage often drove the
industrious labourer from a parish where he could earn 15 s. a week,
to one where he could earn but 10 s. As many as thirty or forty
families were sent off by removals in one day. Thus, as among the
Scotch labourers of the present day, marriage was discouraged; the
peasantry