8 The law of settlements may be therefore now reduced to the following general heads; or, a settlement in a parish may be acquired, 1. By birth; for, wherever a child is first known [863] to be, that is always prima facie the place of settlement, until some other can be shewn.* This is also generally the place of settlement of a bastard child; for a bastard having in the eye of the law no father, cannot be referred to his settlement, as other children may.s† But in legitimate children, though the place of birth be prima facie the settlement, yet it is not conclusively so; for there are, 2. Settlements by parentage, being the settlement of one's father or mother:‡ all legitimate 5 children being really settled in the parish where their parents are settled, until they get a new settlement for themselves. A new settlement may be acquired several ways; as, 3. By marriage. For a woman, marrying a man that is settled in another parish, changes her own 5 settlement:5 the law not permitting the separation of husband and wife. But if the man has no settlement, her's is suspended during his life, if he remains in England and is able to maintain her; but in his absence, or after his death, or during (perhaps) his inability, she may be removed 2 to her old settlement."? The other q 2 Carth. 433. Comb. 364. Salk. 485.2 1 Lord. Raym. 567. 8 See p. 459.8 r s Salk. 427. f Salk. 528. 2 Lord Raym. 1473. t Stra. 544. u Foley. 249. 4251, 252. Bur. Sett. C. 370.4 2 First edition reads "which." 8 Previously, "always." 4 Second and third editions read "return." 2 First edition reads, "be a foreigner, and has no settlement her's is suspended during his life, if he be able to maintain her; but after his death she may return again." **Quoted, 3 Conn. 601; 4 Conn. 116. + Cited, 19 Vt. 96. - Quoted, 3 Conn. 601. 2-2 Quoted, 3 Conn. 602. methods of acquiring settlements in any parish are all reducible to this one, of forty days residence therein: but this forty days residence (which is construed to be lodging or lying there) must not be by fraud, or stealth, or in any clandestine manner; but accompanied with one or other of the following concomitant circumstances. The next method therefore of gaining a settlement, is, 4. By forty days residence, and notice. For if a stranger comes into a parish, and delivers notice in writing of his place of abode, and number of his family, to one of the overseers (which must be read in the church and registered) and resides there unmolested for forty days after such notice, he is legally settled thereby. For the law presumes that such a one at the time of notice is not likely to become chargeable, else he would not venture to give it; or that, in such case, the parish would take care to remove him. But there are also other circumstances equivalent to such notice: therefore, 5. Renting for a year a [364] tenement of the yearly value of ten pounds, and residing forty days in the parish, gains a settlement without notice; upon the principle of having substance enough to gain credit for such a house. 6. Being charged to and paying the public taxes and levies of the parish (excepting those for scavengers, highways,y9 and windows2); 2 and, 7. Executing, when legally appointed,2 any public parochial office for a whole year in the parish, as churc warden, etc., are both of them equivalent to notice, and gain a settlement,a 2if2 coupled with a residence of W Stat. 13 & 14 Car. II. c. 12. 1 Jac. II. c. 17. 3 & 4 W. and Mar. c. 11. a Stat, 3 & 4 W. and M. c. 11. 9 Ninth edition reads instead, "made notorious by." 9 Ninth edition inserts here, "and the duties on houses." 2 First edition reads "when." 1 BLACKST. - 53. forty days. 8. Being hired for a year, when unmarried 2and childless,2 and serving a year in the same service; and 9. Being bound an apprentice, give the servant and apprentice a settlement, without notice, in that place wherein they serve the last forty days. This is meant to encourage application to trades, and going out to reputable services. 10. Lastly, the having an estate of one's own, and residing thereon forty days, however small the value may be, in case it be acquired by act of law or of a third person, as by descent, gift, devise, etc., is a sufficient settlement: but if a man acquire it by his own act, as by purchase (in it's popular sense, in consideration of money paid), then unless the consideration advanced, bona fide, be 30 l. it is no settlement for any longer time, than the person shall inhabit thereon.d He is in no case removable from his own property; but he shall not, by any trifling or fraudulent purchase of his own, acquire a permanent and lasting settlement.* All persons, not so settled, may be removed to their own parishes, on complaint of the overseers, by two justices of the peace, if they shall adjudge them likely to become chargeable to the parish, into which they have intruded: unless they are in a way of getting a legal settlement, as by having hired a house of 101. per annum, or living in an [365] annual service; for then they are not removable. And in all other cases, if the parish to which they belong, will grant them a certificate, acknowleging them to be their parishioners. they cannot be removed merely because likely to become chargeable, but only when they become actually chargeable. But such certificated person can gain no settleb Stat. 3 & 4 W. and M. c. 11. 8 & 9 W. III. c. 10. 31 Geo. II. c. 11, c Salk. 524. d Stat. 9 Geo. I. c. 7. e Salk. 472. f Stat. 8 & 9 W. III. c. 30. 8 Previous ones read, "for seven years." *Cited, 2 N. H. 266, 267; 8 Cush. 75; 4 Conn. 115, 116. ment by any of the means above-mentioned; unless by renting a tenement of 10 l. per annum, or by serving an annual office in the parish, being legally placed therein : neither can an apprentice or servant to such certificated person gain a settlement by such their service.g These are the general heads of the laws relating to the poor, which, by the resolutions of the courts of justice thereon within a century past, are branched into a great variety. And yet, notwithstanding the pains that have been taken about them, they still remain very imperfect, and inadequate to the purposes they are designed for: a fate, that has generally attended most of our statute laws, where they have not the foundation of the common law to build on. When the shires, the hundreds, and the tithings, were kept in the same admirable order that they were disposed in by the great Alfred, there were no persons idle, consequently none but the impotent that needed relief: and the statute of 43 Eliz. seems entirely founded on the same principle. But when this excellent scheme was neglected and departed from, we cannot but observe with concern, what miserable shifts and lame expedients have from time to time been adopted, in order to patch up the flaws occasioned by this neglect. There is not a more necessary or more certain maxim in the frame and constitution of society, than that every individual must contribute his share, in order to the well-being of the community: and surely they must be very deficient in sound policy, who suffer one half of a parish to continue idle, dissolute, and unemployed; and at length are amazed to find, that the industry of the other half is not able to maintain the whole. g Stat. 12 Ann. c. 18. 9 Ninth edition reads "in which." 4 Previous ones read here, "and then from visionary schemes. CHAPTER THE TENTH. OF THE PEOPLE, WHETHER ALIENS, DENIZENS, OR NATIVES. Having, in the eight preceding chapters, treated of persons as they stand in the public relations of magistrates, I now proceed to consider such persons as fall under the denomination of the people. And herein all the inferior and subordinate magistrates, treated of in the last chapter, are included. The first and most obvious division of the people is into aliens and natural-born subjects. [See note 18, page 640.] Natural-born subjects are such as are born within the dominions of the crown of England; that is, within the ligeance, or as it is generally called, the allegiance of the king: and aliens, such as are born out of it. * Allegiance is the tie, or ligamen, which binds the subject to the king, in return for that protection which the king affords the subject.† The thing itself, or substantial part of it, is founded in reason and the nature of government; the name and the form are derived to us from our Gothic ancestors. Under the feodal system, every owner of lands held them in subjection to some superior or lord, from whom or whose ancestors the tenant or vasal had received them; and there was a mutual trust or confidence subsisting between the lord and vasal, that the lord should protect the vasal in the enjoyment of the territory he had granted him, and, on the other hand, that the vasal should be faithful to the lord and defend him against all his enemies. This obligation on the part of the vasal was called his fidelitas or fealty; and an oath of fealty was required, by the feodal law, to be taken by - Quoted, 3 Denio, 202. Cited, 3 Peters, 155; 27 Tex. 741; 44 Ala. 644. - Quoted, 2 Mass. 246. |