work I shall have more than one occasion to return;
but inasmuch as a sentimental opinion prevails that an increase of poverty
and the consequent enactment of poor-laws was the result of the suppression
of the religious houses, and that adequate relief had been previously
furnished by these establishments, it is necessary to say a few words for
the removal of an impression which is as near as possible the reverse of
the truth. I do not doubt that for many centuries these houses fulfilled
honestly the intentions with which they were established; but as early as
the reign of Richard II. it was found necessary to provide some other means
for the support of the aged and impotent; the monasteries not only having
then begun to neglect their duty; but by the appropriation of benefices
having actually deprived the parishes of their local and independent means
of charity.[74] Licences to beg were at that time granted to deserving
persons; and it is noticeable that this measure was in a few years followed
by the petition to Henry IV. for the secularisation of ecclesiastical
property.[75] Thus early in our history had the regular clergy forgotten
the nature of their mission, and the object for which the administration of
the nation's charities had been committed to them. Thus early, while their
houses were the nurseries of dishonest mendicancy,[76] they had surrendered
to lay compassion, those who ought to have been their especial care. I
shall unhappily have occasion hereafter to illustrate these matters in
detail. I mention them in this place only in order to dissipate at once a
foolish dream. At the opening of the sixteenth century, before the
suppression of the monasteries had suggested itself in a practical form,
pauperism was a state question of great difficulty, and as such I have at
present to consider it.

For the able-bodied vagrant, it is well known that the old English laws had
no mercy. When wages are low, and population has outgrown the work which
can be provided for it, idleness may be involuntary and innocent; at a time
when all industrious men could maintain themselves in comfort and
prosperity, "when a fair day's wages for a fair day's work" was really and
truly the law of the land, it was presumed that if strong capable men
preferred to wander about the country, and live upon the labour of others,
mendicancy was not the only crime of which they were likely to be guilty;
while idleness itself was justly looked upo