THE PROBLEMS OF POVERTY 579 
overseers ceased to be concerned in the relief of the poor AD Ih 
farther than by the collection of rates. It may almost be 
said to have established a new system which was based on 
new principles, and which existed side by side with the old, 
according as different parishes exercised their local option. 
The confusion in the whole of the arrangements was farther 
confounded by the special provisions which were adopted in 
various towns and districts under the authority of private 
Acts of Parliament. 
A farther relaxation of the severity of the system, as it and. 
mn . . against the 
had been administered in the greater part of the eighteenth settlement 
century, was effected by modifying the unfair restrictions path 
which the law of settlement placed on the artisan. The 
tyranny of the overseers had been specially felt by such 
new-comers in a parish, as might become chargeable at 
some future time; but in 1795, an Act was passed which 
protected them from interference, until they actually became 
chargeable. This measure did not render it easier to obtain 
a new settlement; but it enabled labourers to live and work 
in any parish, so long as they could pay their way and did 
not come upon the rates; and it protected them from the 
cruelty of sudden and injudicious removal, if, through sickness, 
they did become dependent on parochial relief?. These re- nae 
laxations were in themselves harmless, but they prepared granting of 
the way for that granting of lavish relief, in the early part retief more 
of the nineteenth century, which led to the growth of a “mo 
pauperised class of a new type, and one which proved more 
difficult to deal with than the half-criminal, half-pauper 
cottagers on the commons had been. The provision of 
mairitenance on the land for persons, who were under no 
obligation to work, could not be extended indefinitely; but 
the lavish distribution of outdoor relief seemed to have 
unlimited possibilities of mischief. It pauperised a large 
proportion of the rural poor and contaminated many other 
persons as well, before it was effectively checked. 
4 At first very little use was made of it (Young, Considerations on the subject 
of Poor houses, 1796, p. 29); before 1834, 924 parishes had adopted it. 
2 85 Geo. IIL c. 101. dn Act to prevent the removal of poor persons until 
they shall become actually chargeable. The attempt to remedy hardships, by 
8 and 9 W. III. c. 80, had proved ineffectual 
27