THE WEALTH OF NATIONS.

139

tificated man should come to reside, it was further enacted bythe same statute, that he should gain no settlement there byany means whatever, except either by renting a tenementof ten pounds a year, or l>y serving upon his own accountin an annual parish office for one whole year; and conse-quently neither by notice, nor by service, nor by appren-ticeship, nor by paying parish rates. By the 12th of QueenAnne too, stat. 1. c. 18. it was further enacted, that neitherthe servants nor apprentices of such certificated man shouldgain any settlement in the parish where he resided undersuch certificate.

Mow far this invention has restored that free circulationof labour, which the preceding statutes had almost entirelytaken away, we may learn from the following very judicious ob-servation of Dr. Burn. “ it is obvious,” says he, “ that thereare divers good reasons for requiring certificates with per-sons coming to settle iu any place; namely, that persons re-siding under them can gain no settlement, neither by appren-ticeship, nor by service, nor by giving notice, nor by payingparish rates ; that they can settle neither apprentices nor ser-vants ; that if they become chargeable, it is certainly knownwhither to remove them, and the parish shall be paid for theremoval, and for their maintenance in the mean time; andthat if they fall sick, and cannot be removed, the parish whichgave the certificate must maintain them : none of all whichcan be without a certificate. Which reasons will hold pro-portionably for parishes not granting certificates in ordinarycases; for it is far more certain than an equal chance, butthat they will have the certificated persons again, and in aworse condition.” The moral of this observation seems tobe, that certificates ought always to be required by the pa-rish where any poor man comes to reside, and that theyought very seldom to be granted by that which he purposesto leave. “ There is somewhat of hardship in this matter ofcertificates,” says the same very intelligent author, in his His-tory of the Poor Laws, “ by putting it in the power of a pa-rish officer, to imprison a man as it were for life; howeverinconvenient it may be for him to continue at that placewhere lie has had the misfortune to acquire wlmt is called asettlement, or whatever advantage he may propose to himselfby living elsewhere.”

Though a certificate carries along with it no testimonial ofgood behaviour, and certifies nothing but that the person be-lt 2