[156] Eden, vol. i. p. 180.
[157] The parish might have the satisfaction of punishing the mother by a year’s hard labour (7 James I. c. 4, altered in 1810), but could not get rid of the child.
[158] Wealth of Nations, vol. i. p. 194.
[159] Quoted by Eden, vol. i. p. 347.
[160] See Ibid., p. 296.
[161] Vol. xiv. pp. 205, 206.
[162] An example of a parish where the interests of the employer and of the parish officers differed is given in the House of Commons Journal for February 4, 1788, when a petition was presented from Mr. John Wilkinson, a master iron-founder at Bradley, near Bilston, in the parish of Wolverhampton. The petitioner states ‘that the present Demand for the Iron of his Manufacture and the Improvement of which it is capable, naturally encourage a very considerable Extension of his Works, but that the Experience he has had of the vexatious Effect, as well as of the constantly increasing Amount of Poor Rates to which he is subject, has filled him with Apprehensions of final Ruin to his Establishment; and that the Parish Officers ... are constantly alarming his Workmen with Threats of Removal to the various Parishes from which the Necessity of employing skilful Manufacturers has obliged him to collect them.’ He goes on to ask that his district shall be made extra-parochial to the poor rates.
[163] Hasbach, pp. 172–3.
[164] Eden, vol. ii. p. 384.
[165] See p. 148.