IMG
3. The administrators of the fund are, the minister and elders(or kirk session). The care of the poor is considered as a dutyincumbent upon them, not as an office from which any emolu-ment is to arise. The administration, therefore, costs nothing,excepting that, sometimes, a small allowance or percentage uponthe assessments is made to the clerk, for trouble of apportioningand collecting them. The kirk-session, composed of elders, (cho-sen ordinarily from among the most respectable inhabitants offixed residence, and residing heritors), and the minister of theparish, are accountable for their proceedings to the meetings ofthe heritors of the parish, excepting for the one half of the or-* dinary collections at the church-door, which is placed entirelyunder the control of the kirk-session, to meet unforeseen occur-ring exigencies. When the ordinary funds are found deficient,and a parochial assessment becomes necessary, a meeting of he-ritors is intimated from the pulpit on Sunday, by the authorityof the kirk-session, upon the inducice of ten free days, f Theheritors who meet upon this citation, have full powers of law toassess the proprietors of land and their tenants, for the poor; theassessment to he proportioned to the respective valuations of thelands in the County cess-books : the heritors attending, vote percapita. When they meet, they can call for an account of thesession’s administrations, and are competent to recover from themembers of session such funds as they may have lost or misap-plied, by a process before the ordinary courts of law. At thesemeetings, the kirk-session has no power of placing any personupon the roll, or in modifying the quantum of pension to be as-signed : they have no right of interference, but simply that ofrepresentation and advice. When the heritors, with the adviceof the minister and kirk-session, have made up a list of the poor,
ruilion of rent. It is certainly a fundamental constitutional principle, that those■who impose a tax should have a fellow-feeling of its burden. In some instan-ces, in Scotland , proprietors have imposed the whole burden of poor’s ass*»-ments upon their tenants, in direct contradiction to act of Parliament , winchmakes proprietor and tenant liable in equal shares. It may be questionable)how far such conditions are not pacta illicila ; unless it were also articled, thatthose who alone pay should have the sole right of voting in the imposition 01what is paid.
In 1795, the parish of Gettering, in Northamptonshire , was assessed fofpoor at the rate of 15s. in the pound of racked rent. Suppose, then, a landedproprietor had his lands let to tenants at 1000/. a year of rent, these tenants Mactually to pay, over and above, 750/. to the overseers of the poor.
The inequality of this tax is obvious \ for had a merchant, a manufactiir° r ior person possessed of money in the funds, and enjoying a revenue of 175 Cmbeen resident in that parish, he could only have been assessed according to therent of the house possessed by him, which, at a rent, suppose of 60/.,only have subjected him to the payment of 451 .—Sec Complete Farmer's U IC ‘tionary y published at London in 1807, in two volumes quarto.
Instances are stated of tenants paying 24s. to the poor upon every 20s. p* 1to the landlord. (Id. ibid.)
f Non-resident heritors, or their factors, should also get written intimstiofl*