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 complain 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