request communications to be made to the government by the parochial authorities themselves, as to the practicability, in their several districts, of the system proposed to be adopted. This being done, he would next year introdnce a bill, taking for its preamble the fiftieth clause of the present measure, and which should come into operation on a certain day, to be extended on the authority of three magistrates sitting in petty sessions. He would also empower magistrates in petty sessions to appoint nine persons of their own district,-not to wield the inquisitorial powers conferred on the proposed central board of commissioners, but to receive reports of the progress of the measure from the different parishes within their district, and to communicate those reports, matters of complaint, and the various details now to be vested in the hands of the commissioners. He felt satisfied that this system would be much more congenial to the feelings of the country and of the people than the proposed plan of centralization.

Lord Wynford said, that if one uniform rule of administering the poor-laws could be adopted, he should have approved of a central board of commissioners to enforce it; but the lord chancellor himself had admitted that such a mode of administration could not be enforced, for he distinctly expressed his conviction that what might be a good method of proceeding in one parish might be bad in another, which happened to be differently circumstanced. What, then, was the advantage of having a central board, if a uniform system could not be adopted? On the showing of the proposer of the bill, it was necessary to intrust the administration

of the law to persons having local knowledge of the circumstances of each particular parish. Now the magistrates possessed this local knowledge, which it was impossible that the commissioners should have. He was sensible of the evils of the poor-laws and of the defects of their administration; but although sensible of the evil, he did not think this bill the remedy which ought to be adopted. On the contrary, he was satisfied that to take the administration of the poor-laws out of the hands of the local authorities would be adding to the evil.

To

The lord chancellor, earl of Winchilsea, and duke of Wellington contended for the necessity of this central board. The object of it was to bring things back to their former state; to put them in the right track; to do all that those acquainted with the subject knew it would do; to lop off excrescences; do away with abuses; bring back things to their pristine state; and reform the system according to the original meaning and construction of the act on which it was founded. do all this required a vigorous hand, and that vigour could be exercised only by vesting a discretionary power in a few persons. These commissioners, it should be remembered, would be appointed only for a limited time; and, when that time expired, the administration of the poor-laws might be returned to those in whose hands it was now vested, with the benefit of the experience of the improved system to guide them in their future management. Those who spoke of the administration of the poor-laws by the magistrates forgot that it was not the magistrates, but the overseers, who

administered them. It was true, the magistrates had interfered with the overseers; and one of the objects of the bill was to bring the law back from the hands of the magistrates, and replace it in those of the overseers, according to the old system, and the change would be effected by different modes, according to the circumstances of each parish. The duke of Wellington said, he lived in the neighbourhood of places which had been held out as an example of good management-he referred to the parishes of Cookham and Swallowfield, which were said to be depauperized, and he could tell his noble friend that the example had not been followed by any of the neighbouring parishes. Why? Because the magistrates could only interfere for harm, not for good, and the overseers would not follow the example thus set them. There was nothing for it but a measure of this kind, to bring the administration of the law back to the old system, and when that should be effected, no one would be more happy to see the plan abandoned than himself. The only alteration made in the clauses regarding the commissioners and their powers was an addition proposed by the duke of Wellington to the effect that they should be bound "to keep a record of each letter received, the date of its reception, the person from whom it came, the subject to which it related, and the minute of any answer given to it, or made thereon, and also, where the commissioners differed, of the opinion of each commissioner, and that a copy of such record be transmitted to the secretary of state once a-year or oftener if required." Although the original clauses regarding bastardy had been miti

gated in the house of Commons, they still encountered opposition in the peers.-The bishop of Exeter moved (July 28) to substitute for the leading enactment, the following provision:-" That the father and mother of an illegitimate child, or the survivor of them, shall be required to support such child, and that no parish shall be bound to support such child, whilst either parent is able to do so, and that all relief occasioned by the wants of such child shall be considered as relief afforded to the father and mother or the survivor of them." Although the provisions of the bill on this subject were founded on the recommendations of the commissioners, he did not hold that this was sufficient authority for so bold a change. He could not help thinking that the report bore traces of an animus not favourable to its weight. In the report, the fathers of bastard children were spoken of as "unfortunate" persons. "He was an unfortunate young man" who was brought before the justices for this offence; but whenever the mother was spoken of, allusion was certain to be made to her "vice." You did not meet with this form of expression in a solitary instance only; on the contrary, it pervaded the whole report. The language of the report was, "The female is the most to blame."-" continued illicit intercourse originated with the female." He confessed that he must require much better authority than any which he had seen in that report, to believe such an assertion. A learned gentleman, who had drawn up one of the most considerable reports, had spoken thus of female chastity-" It may almost be affirmed that the virtue of female chastity does not exist

among the lower orders of England, except to a certain extent among domestic female servants, who know that they hold their situations by that tenure, and are more prudent in consequence. Among the residue all evidence goes to prove that it is a nonentity." This was a grave and serious statement of the condition of morals in this country. No wonder that the commissioners, entertaining such an opinion of the state of female chastity, had proposed for the females of England, a code of law not to be paralleled by any other country. They proposed the abolition of all the existing bastardylaws as being things which no man could esteem to be wise or

good arrangements. ،، What we propose in their room," said they, is intended to restore things, as far as possible, to the state in which they would have been, if no such laws had ever existed; to trust to those checks, and to those checks only, which Providence has imposed on licentiousness, under the conviction that all attempts of the legislature to increase their force, or to substitute for them artificial sanctions, have tended only to weaken or pervert them." The commissioners proposed then to trust to those "checks which Providence has placed upon licentiousness." He was inclined to do the same; but his notion of the checks,which Providence had placed on licentiousness, did not agree with the notions of the commissioners. Those checks appeared to him to be three. The first and the most powerful check was the sinfulness of the act. The second was also very powerful; it was the apprehension of the responsibility of becoming a parent in consequence of the commission of it. That was

admitted on all hands to be a strong preventive check, for it was that very check on which Mr. Malthus based the whole of "his philosophy." The third check was the fear of becoming exposed to those restraints, sanctioned by the law, which weresaid, in the sentence which he had just read to them, to negative the restraints of Providence. That sentence he understood to mean this-that the commissioners were of opinion that the attempts of the legislature to check the growth of bastardy interfered with the restraints of Providence. Now he thought that those restraints of the law were the retraints of Providence; that all buman laws ought to be such as carried with them the sanction of Providence, and ought, therefore, to be considered as the ordinances of God. The commissioners next proceeded to say-" In the natural state of things a child, until emancipated, depends on its parents." Let the house mark the phrase "on its parents;" not on one parent, but on both. Why, then, was this not the case with illegitimate as well as with legitimate children?" Because," according to the commissioners, " only one of the parents of an illegitimate child can be ascertained." Indeed! then this bill performed an impossibility; for it ascertained who was its parent, whenever the parish was the party concerned, though it would do nothing for it so long as the unhappy mother only was that party. The commissioners," as a further step towards the natural state of things, recommended that the mother of an illegitimate child should be required to support it, and that any relief occasioned by the wants of the child be considered relief afforded to the

parent." Now, he would adopt the language of the commissioners, and would carry it one step further He would say, that the father and mother of an illegitimate child, when ascertained, should both be required to support it. This was its right from the instant it drew breath; and it was impossible to imagine any process of sound thinking by which it could be made, that the duty of providing for the infant was less incumbent on the father than on the mother, or that it could even be reconciled with justice, that the former should escape, while all the burden was thrown upon the latter.

If this was the result at which justice arrived, the case against the bill was established, and the defence of its principles must rest on some ground of expediency. They might be told, that it was for the good of the female sex, that the law should press hard on the woman who became a mother before she became a wife. He could not consent to such an argument, for he was not one of those who would do evil that good might follow. If the case rested here, he should contend that their lordships would do wrong, if they passed the present law. But it appeared from the report of the commissioners themselves that the present bastardy laws, if wisely administered, would get rid of all the evils which were now complained of. "In Swallowfield, Berks," said one of the magistrates, "we adopted a few years ago the practice of paying to the mother as much only of the allowance from the father as was absolutely necessary for the immediate support of the child. The effect upon the mother was precisely what he had expected, and desired it to

be." Why, this was only saying, that in Berkshire a wise administration of the existing law had stopped the increase of bastardy. But the commissioners went on :"If we could have persevered in the practice, we have no doubt it would have been productive of very salutary consequences; but a question having arisen as to its legality, we were compelled reluctantly to abandon it." What was the objection taken to the legality of the practice? That the parish had taken from the father a larger sum than that which was necessary to support the child, and that that sum had not been paid over to the child, for whose use it was intended. That was clearly illegal and wrong. "In Cookham, Berkshire," the commissioners added, "the same plan was adopted and persevered in." The result has been, that in a population of 3,337, but one bastard has been christened during each of the last five years; and yet, in 1822, there were twentysix bastards born in the same parish." With this evidence before them, of a parish in which only five bastards had been christened during the last five years, though there must have been 1,700 females residing within it, the commissioners dared to say that female chastity was a nonentity in England. In Bingham, in Nottinghamshire, the population was about 1,700; the same consequences had resulted from the same cause:"In 1818, Mr. Lowe introduced a change, marked by the wisdom which characterises his other proceedings. For the seven years ending 1818, the average annual number of bastard births in Bingham was six; and the average annual number of marriages was thirteen

and two-thirds.

For the seven years ending 1824, the average annual number of bastard births was under two, and that of marriages ten. The overseer's account is as follows:-"Twelve years ago we introduced this custom: when a woman came, saying, she was with child, she was taken before the magistrates in the usual way; the sessions made the order on the father in the usual way. Then we told her she must get the money from the father herself, as we should never trouble him; and that if she became chargeable to us, we should send her to the House of Correction, and all women are invariably so sent. Before this we used to have five or six bast ards born every year; now we have under two. These are still sworn and affiliated in the usual way; there is no change in that respect; but if the mother applies for relief, we enforce the law, and send her to prison. So the mothers now never think of applying to the parish, but arrange with the fathers as well as they can, and maintain the children as well as they can. There are no bastards on the parish books now but one; and this is a particular case, where the mother was ill-treated by the father." Thus it was possible to reduce the amount of an evil, on which it was not incumbent upon them to legislate against justice, in regard to a sex against whom all hostility ought to be mitigated by a recollection that they could have no representatives in parliament, except that other sex, whose duties and obligations towards them were the very matters in question.

The Bishop of London, who had himself been one of the commissioners, answered his brother of Exeter. He admitted that the

censure passed on the female chastity of the lower orders by one of the assistant-commissioners, was very strongly worded; but that gentleman had a style of warmth and precipitancy which often led him to form conclusions stronger than his premises warranted. Moreover, the evidence given before the commissioners went a long way to confirm the correctness of the opinion given by the sub-commissioner referred to. The only fact, which had been alleged against it, was, that, in the well-managed parish of Cookham, which was under the superintendance of one of the best magistrates in the county, there had been only five bastards in the last five years, whereas, judging from the number in 1826, there ought to have been 130 in the same period. Now, that sort of evidence was not at all conclusive on the point, as would appear from a very short passage in one of the reports respecting the parish of Cranley. Its population was about 1,350, and the average number of bastards did not exceed one in each year; "for the man marries the woman as soon as she is with child, in the expectation of being better off. The order is generally 2s. on the father, and nothing on the mother." Another gentleman stated to Mr. Walcot, that, "in forty-nine out of every fifty marriages that he had been called on to perform in his parish amongst the lower orders, the female was either with child or had had one, and many affirmed this of nineteen out of twenty cases." If it were not from a deep sense of what he owed to his brother commissioners, the country, and himself, he would not admit the sadly deteriorated state of morals in England. "Bas