and the number of the poor, the sick, the lame, and the impotent inhabitants, of poor orphans, and destitute children; to provide dwellings for them, and after ascertaining what the necessary expense would amount to weekly, to call for the collections of the parish, or other sums appointed for the support of the poor, which the overseers were directed to distribute among the poor people according to their needs.20 The powers conferred by this act on justices of peace seems never to have been exercised by them; but the act clearly indicated what classes of persons were deemed entitled to parochial relief, it excluded all those in any way able to gain their own living. Thus the casual or ablebodied poor were not recognised as legally entitled to any relief, the law treating them as bound to earn their own living.

An act touching beggars, and vagabonds was passed in 1663, which, after referring to the failure of the many former acts on this matter, proceeds to declare it lawful "for all persons or companies, who have or may erect manufactories, to seize any vagabonds who shall be found begging, or masterless and out of service, and have nothing to maintain themselves; and then to employ them in their works as they shall think fit; this being done with the advice of the magistrates of the place where these persons were seized. And commands that the parishes where such vagabonds and idle persons were born, or in case the place of their nativity be unknown, then the parishes where they have any residence, haunt, or frequent resort, for the three years preceding their apprehension, which, being thus relieved of the burden of them, were enjoined to make payment to the persons or companies who may happen to employ them-the sum of twopence per day for the first year, and one penny for the next three years; and the one-half of this to be paid by the proprietors of the several parishes, and the other half by the possessors and the inhabitants dwelling upon the land of each heritor." The act also directed, that public intimation of a

20 Acts Parl. Scot., Vol. VII., pp. 255-256, 306-314; Dunlop's Law of Scotland Relating to the Poor, p. 16.

meeting should be made at the parish church, to frame a rateroll for the support of the poor in their parish, who should be employed as above stated. "The poor thus employed shall continue in the service of their employers, under their direction and correction, not only during the time which the parishes pay for them, but also for seven years thereafter, receiving only their meat and clothing." 21

At the first glance, this act appears to offer great facilities to commercial companies and corporations, as they were empowered to seize, and compel to work for their benefit, all beggars, vagabonds, and persons out of employment; and instead of paying for their labour, being themselves paid for employing such persons. This was carrying the encouragement of manufactories far enough; and as such companies were also to be exempted from all import and export duties, and protected from home competitors by a previous act, and to have labour for nothing, what more could they desire? But work performed under these conditions could hardly have been successful, and it does not appear that any attempt was ever made to put the act into operation.

In September, 1672, it was stated in parliament that in bypast times many good laws had been passed for the suppression of beggars, vagabonds, and other idle persons, but still a numerous brood of such persons remained, and were daily increasing, living without law or rule, civil or sacred, and a great burden and a reproach to the kingdom. Therefore it was enacted that the magistrates of all the boroughs in the kingdom should provide correction-houses for beggars, vagabonds, and other idle persons, before the month of June, 1673, under the penalty of five hundred merks quarterly until such houses were provided: and the sums raised from these penalties were to be applied for building or purchasing correction-houses. They were directed to be built with an open close, that the health of the poor people might not be hurt by keeping them always within doors. At the same time, it was again declared to be lawful for coal

21 Acts Parl. Scot., Vol. VII., pp. 485-486.

masters, salt-masters, and manufacturers, "to seize upon any vagabonds and beggars, wherever they can find them, and put them to work in their coal-haughs and manufactories". The execution of the act was committed to the Privy Council, with full powers to enforce it. But in spite of all this, no correctionhouses were erected in conformity with the provisions of the act, which remained inoperative.22

In the three years from the beginning of 1692 to 1694, the Privy Council emitted several proclamations concerning the poor; and parliament, in 1695, revived and ratified all the former acts for maintaining the poor, and for the repression and punishment of beggars, and ordered them to be put into vigorous execution. Owing to a succession of bad harvests during the latter years of the century, the distress among the lower classes in Scotland was very great, hence the suffering of the poor, and mendicancy, were increased, and the government had to endeavour to meet and to mitigate both. In 1698, parliament passed another act touching the poor, ratifying all the former acts for repressing beggars and for maintaining the poor; reciting portions of the act of 1617, referring to the employment and upbringing of poor children; quoting the act of 1663, which empowered the masters of manufactories to seize idle vagabonds and set them to work; and referring to the act of 1672, ordering the erection of correction-houses, and to the proclamations of the council-all of which were commanded to be put into vigorous execution in every point. The Privy Council was empowered to appoint supervisors and inspectors of the poor, to see that the laws were put into effect: and moreover, it was authorised to frame and issue regulations as far as consistent with the standing laws, the sure employing and maintaining of the poor, and freeing the kingdom of vagabonds and idle beggars.23

22 Acts Parl. Scot., Vol. VIII., pp. 89-91. "There does not exist in Scotland a single correction-house applied to the purposes set forth in the act."-Dunlop on the Poor-Law of Scotland, p. 20.

23 Acts Parl. Scot., Vol. IX., p. 463; Vol. X., pp. 177-178. For a long time the various boroughs had their own regulations for the relief of their poor. In

The preceding is only a brief account of what was attempted and done to provide for the poor, and to relieve the nation of the mass of vagabondism and vagrancy. Throughout our history, the difficulty of treating the matter effectively resulted from the fact that the nation was oppressed with a great number of able-bodied idlers and wandering characters, well able, but determined not, to work; being from circumstances, and by habits engendered through centuries of idleness, socially and morally insensible of the duty of supporting themselves by honest energy and industry. So the attempt to introduce the labour test was distinctly and repeatedly made, and it has continued as a special feature of the Scotch Poor-Law system down to the present century.

The numbers of the idle and vagrant population in the latter years of the seventeenth century were enormous. Besides the general causes of the prevalence of vagrancy in Scotland, which had engaged the attention of government from an early period, there were, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, particular causes which tended greatly to increase the number of the idle and vagrant persons. For a time, at least, the religious revolution of the sixteenth century augmented the pauper and idle classes; and in Scotland this was followed by the Civil War in the first half of the seventeenth century, and it again was succeeded by twenty-seven years of misgovernment and persecution. This latter period especially was attended with so much confiscation of property, so many ruinous fines, so many apprehensions, imprisonments, and banishments, so much interruption of regular industry by military occupation and the beginning of the year 1639 the magistrates of Glasgow adopted a rule to the effect "that the sum of six hundred pounds be advanced, and for the better collection of it, they have ordered, that there should be a fifth part added to the rate of each parish, and the bailies to collect it with the stint-money". About the end of April the same year, the magistrates "concluded that the poor be kept in their houses for a quarter to come, and ordered a contribution to be gathered to that effect, and intimation made through the town by sound of drum, to come on Wednesday next at the ringing of the bell, with certification to be poinded fo the double of the sum if they failed ".-Burgh Records of Glasgow, p. 400.

execution, and so much waste of the means and goods of the most industrious classes of the people-all which could not fail to increase the numbers of the idle and the poor population of the kingdom. Thus it was that, towards the close of the seventeenth century, in spite of all the legislative enactments, in spite of the influences of religion, in spite of all the restraints and the inducements to honest exertion, arising from a slowly advancing civilisation, Scotland still presented the gloomy spectacle of an enormous mass of vagrant, of idle, and of poor people. They were the product of a long chain of causes, which only the steady and uninterrupted influences of civilisation could modify and remove.

Fletcher estimated the idle and vagabond population of Scotland at 200,000, living without religious, moral, or domestic restraint, revelling in iniquity, and committing crime with. impunity. 24 Though his statement is probably exaggerated, we know from other information that the amount of vagrancy and wretchedness was very great, in proportion to the whole population, and several generations later, there was a large body of vagrants in Scotland.

The police arrangements of the kingdom were extremely imperfect; in many places the local hereditary powers remained intact with all their capriciousness and irregularity. Even in the chief towns there was no regular organised police force, their place being supplied by the town-sergeants, and in times of special danger or the alarm of impending war, a night-watch was appointed.

From the earliest times, the Scots had a vivid and a deep sense of the supernatural, and the ideas and dogmas associated with the Reformation had taken a firm hold upon their mind and feeling. The leading ideas of their religion, indeed, had been modified, and a new external form of polity adopted by the people; yet many of the older notions and customs, interwoven with their former belief and national habits, still survived here

24 Fletcher's Second Discourse on Public Affairs, published in 1698.