OF PROVISION MADE FOR THE POOR.
[1577, Book III., Chapter 5; 1587, Book II., Chapter 10.]
There is no commonwealth at this day in Europe wherein there is not great
store of poor people, and those necessarily to be relieved by the
wealthier sort, which otherwise would starve and come to utter confusion.
With us the poor is commonly divided into three sorts, so that some are
poor by impotence, as the fatherless child, the aged, blind, and lame, and
the diseased person that is judged to be incurable; the second are poor by
casualty, as the wounded soldier, the decayed householder, and the sick
person visited with grievous and painful diseases; the third consisteth of
thriftless poor, as the rioter that hath consumed all, the vagabond that
will abide nowhere, but runneth up and down from place to place (as it
were seeking work and finding none), and finally the rogue and the
strumpet, which are not possible to be divided in sunder, but run to and
fro over all the realm, chiefly keeping the champaign soils in summer to
avoid the scorching heat, and the woodland grounds in winter to eschew the
blustering winds.
For the first two sorts[165] (that is to say, the poor by impotence and
poor by casualty, which are the true poor indeed, and for whom the Word
doth bind us to make some daily provision), there is order taken
throughout every parish in the realm that weekly collection shall be made
for their help and sustentation--to the end they shall not scatter abroad,
and, by begging here and there, annoy both town and country. Authority
also is given unto the justices in every county (and great penalties
appointed for such as make default) to see that the intent of the statute
in this behalf be truly executed according to the purpose and meaning of
the same, so that these two sorts are sufficiently provided for; and such
as can live within the limits of their allowance (as each one will do that
is godly and well disposed) may well forbear to roam and range about. But
if they refuse to be supported by this benefit of the law, and will rather
endeavour by going to and fro to maintain their idle trades, then are they
adjudged to be parcel of the third sort, and so, instead of courteous
refreshing at home, are often corrected with sharp execution and whip of
justice abroad. Many there are which, notwithstanding the rigour of the
laws provided in that behalf, yield rather with this liberty (as they call
it) to be daily under the fear and terror of the whip than, by abiding
where they were born or bred, to be provided for by the devotion of the
parishes. I found not long since a note of these latter sort, the effect
whereof ensueth. Idle beggars are such either through other men's occasion
or through their own default--by other men's occasion (as one way for
example) when some covetous man (such, I mean, as have the cast or right
vein daily to make beggars enough whereby to pester the land, espying a
further commodity in their commons, holds, and tenures) doth find such
means as thereby to wipe many out of their occupyings and turn the same
unto his private gains.[166] Hereupon it followeth that, although the
wise and better-minded do either forsake the realm for altogether, and
seek to live in other countries, as France, Germany, Barbary, India,
Muscovia, and very Calcutta, complaining of no room to be left for them at
home, do so behave themselves that they are worthily to be accounted among
the second sort, yet the greater part, commonly having nothing to stay
upon, are wilful, and thereupon do either prove idle beggars or else
continue stark thieves till the gallows do eat them up, which is a
lamentable case. Certes in some men's judgment these things are but
trifles, and not worthy the regarding. Some also do grudge at the great
increase of people in these days, thinking a necessary brood of cattle far
better than a superfluous augmentation of mankind. But I can liken such
men best of all unto the pope and the devil, who practise the hindrance of
the furniture of the number of the elect to their uttermost, to the end
the authority of the one upon the earth, the deferring of the locking up
of the other in everlasting chains, and the great gains of the first, may
continue and endure the longer. But if it should come to pass that any
foreign invasion should be made--which the Lord God forbid for his
mercies' sake!--then should these men find that a wall of men is far
better than stacks of corn and bags of money, and complain of the want
when it is too late to seek remedy. The like occasion caused the Romans to
devise their law _Agraria_: but the rich, not liking of it, and the
covetous, utterly condemning it as rigorous and unprofitable, never ceased
to practise disturbance till it was quite abolished. But to proceed with
my purpose.
Such as are idle beggars[167] through their own default are of two sorts,
and continue their estates either by casual or mere voluntary means: those
that are such by casual means are in the beginning justly to be referred
either to the first or second sort of poor aforementioned, but,
degenerating into the thriftless sort, they do what they can to continue
their misery, and, with such impediments as they have, to stray and wander
about, as creatures abhorring all labour and every honest exercise. Certes
I call these casual means, not in the respect of the original of all
poverty, but of the continuance of the same, from whence they will not be
delivered, such is their own ungracious lewdness and froward disposition.
The voluntary means proceed from outward causes, as by making of
corrosives, and applying the same to the more fleshy parts of their
bodies, and also laying of ratsbane, spearwort, crowfoot, and such like
unto their whole members, thereby to raise pitiful and odious sores, and
move the hearts of the goers-by such places where they lie, to yearn at
their misery, and thereupon bestow large alms upon them. How artificially
they beg, what forcible speech, and how they select and choose out words
of vehemence, whereby they do in manner conjure or adjure the goer-by to
pity their cases, I pass over to remember, as judging the name of God and
Christ to be more conversant in the mouths of none and yet the presence of
the Heavenly Majesty further off from no men than from this ungracious
company. Which maketh me to think that punishment is far meeter for them
than liberality or alms, and sith Christ willeth us chiefly to have a
regard to Himself and his poor members.
Unto this nest is another sort to be referred, more sturdy than the rest,
which, having sound and perfect limbs, do yet notwithstanding sometime
counterfeit the possession of all sorts of diseases. Divers times in their
apparel also they will be like serving men or labourers: oftentimes they
can play the mariners, and seek for ships which they never lost. But in
fine they are all thieves and caterpillars in the commonwealth, and by the
Word of God not permitted to eat, sith they do but lick the sweat from the
true labourers' brows, and bereave the godly poor of that which is due
unto them, to maintain their excess, consuming the charity of
well-disposed people bestowed upon them, after a most wicked and
detestable manner.
It is not yet full threescore years since this trade began: but how it
hath prospered since that time it is easy to judge, for they are now
supposed, of one sex and another, to amount unto above 10,000 persons, as
I have heard reported. Moreover, in counterfeiting the Egyptian
rogues,[168] they have devised a language among themselves, which they
name "Canting," but others, "pedler's French," a speech compact thirty
years since, of English and a great number of odd words of their own
devising, without all order or reason, and yet such is it as none but
themselves are able to understand. The first deviser thereof was hanged by
the neck--a just reward, no doubt, for his deserts, and a common end to
all of that profession.
A gentleman[169] also of late hath taken great pains to search out the
secret practices of this ungracious rabble. And among other things he
setteth down and describeth three and twenty sorts of them, whose names
it shall not be amiss to remember whereby each one may take occasion to
read and know as also by his industry what wicked people they are, and
what villainy remaineth in them.
_The several disorders and degrees amongst our idle vagabonds._
1. Rufflers. 8. Fraters.
2. Uprightmen. 9. Abrams.
3. Hookers or anglers. 10. Freshwater mariners or whipiacks.
4. Rogues. 11. Drummerers.
5. Wild rogues. 12. Drunken tinkers.
6. Priggers or pransers. 13. Swadders or pedlers.
7. Palliards. 14. Jarkemen or patricoes.
_Of the women kind._
1. Demanders for glimmar or fire. 5. Walking mortes.
2. Bawdy-baskets. 6. Doxies.
3. Mortes. 7. Dells.
4. Autem mortem. 8. Kinching mortes.
9. Kinching cooes.[170]
The punishment that is ordained for this kind of people is very sharp, and
yet it cannot restrain them from their gadding: wherefore the end must
needs be martial law,[171] to be exercised upon them, as upon thieves,
robbers, despisers of all laws, and enemies to the commonwealth and
welfare of the land. What notable robberies, pilferies, murders, rapes,
and stealings of young children, burning, breaking, and disfiguring their
limbs to make them pitiful in the sight of the people, I need not to
rehearse; but for their idle rogueing about the country, the law ordaineth
this manner of correction. The rogue being apprehended, committed to
prison, and tried in the next assizes (whether they be of gaol delivery or
sessions of the peace), if he happen to be convicted for a vagabond,
either by inquest of office or the testimony of two honest and credible
witnesses upon their oaths, he is then immediately adjudged to be
grievously whipped and burned through the gristle of the right ear with a
hot iron of the compass of an inch about, as a manifestation of his wicked
life, and due punishment received for the same.[172] And this judgment is
to be executed upon him except some honest person worth five pounds in the
queen's books in goods, or twenty shillings in land, or some rich
householder to be allowed by the justices, will be bound in recognisance
to retain him in his service for one whole year. If he be taken the second
time, and proved to have forsaken his said service, he shall then be
whipped again, bored likewise through the other ear, and set to service:
from whence if he depart before a year be expired, and happen afterwards
to be attached again, he is condemned to suffer pains of death as a felon
(except before excepted) without benefit of clergy or sanctuary, as by the
statute doth appear. Among rogues and idle persons, finally, we find to be
comprised all proctors that go up and down with counterfeit licences,
cozeners, and such as gad about the country, using unlawful games,
practisers of physiognomy and palmestry, tellers of fortunes, fencers,
players, minstrels, jugglers, pedlers, tinkers, pretended scholars,
shipmen, prisoners gathering for fees, and others so oft as they be taken
without sufficient licence. From among which company our bearwards are not
excepted, and just cause: for I have read that they have, either
voluntarily or for want of power to master their savage beasts, been
occasion of the death and devouration of many children in sundry countries
by which they have passed, whose parents never knew what was become of
them. And for that cause there is and have been many sharp laws made for
bearwards in Germany, whereof you may read in other. But to our rogues.
Each one also that harboureth or aideth them with meat or money is taxed
and compelled to fine with the queen's majesty for every time that he doth
succour them as it shall please the justices of peace to assign, so that
the taxation exceed not twenty, as I have been informed. And thus much of
the poor and such provision as is appointed for them within the realm of
England.