or scheme for better methods of helping the poor. The writers are all agreed upon the facts as to the "growing misery and numbers of the poor," the growth of the poor rates, the need of better means for setting the poor to work, the "nuisance of beggars," and so forth. Sir Frederick Eden, in his "State of the Poor," gives a list of some 300 publications of the sort, and their chief interest lies, first, in their numbers; secondly, in their unanimity as to the facts and the failure of existing methods; thirdly, in the evidence they afford of the solicitude for better social conditions even in these early days. A strong vein of humanity runs through them all, and many of the best men of the day, whose names are even now household words, applied their minds to the subject. To us at the present time it is especially curious to notice that almost all the arguments used nowadays on the one side or the other, were used again and again in these pamphlets, that most of the remedies proposed nowadays were proposed in substance one and even two hundred years ago. The causes alleged for the increase of pauperism were almost identical with those which we hear nowadays from every platform, and which we read of in every publication upon the subject—on the one side the "engrossing of farms," or, in other words, the consolidation of landed property, the cruelty of the rich, the substitution of machinery for hand labour, and even foreign competition; on the other, drink, imprudence, idleness, and the relaxation of discipline. What strikes one chiefly about it all, and that with a feeling of despair, is the want of finality, the constant fluctuation of opinion, and the never-ending action and reaction.
It is clear that the second object of the Elizabethan Poor Law, namely, the "setting of the poor to work," was, probably owing to its inherent
