And a certificate granted by one overseer is bad, and gives security to the certificated parish.-Thus in the K. v. Clifton, Hil. Ter. 42 Geo. 3, the father of the pauper in the year 1780, went with his family to reside at Yieldersley, under a certificate under the hand and seal of J. Warrington, only overseer of the poor of the township of Sturston, one of five townships, within the parish of Ashbourne; after about one year's residence in Fliersley the pauper's father returned to Sturston, leaving his Sen the pauper, then only two years old, with his grandfather in Yieldersley, with whom he resided till 16 years of age, when he was hired and served a year in Yieldersley: the townships in the parish of Ashbourne severally maintain their own poor: at the fine of granting the certificate, J. Warrington was the only

er appointed for the township of Sturston, during that yar. There has generally been only one overseer appointed for the township of Sturston, though in some few instances there have been two, and there has always been a sufficient number of habitants to have appointed two overseers. THE question was, whether the certificate granted by one overseer can be good? BY THE COURT first considering it as a certificate given by an overseer appointed under the statute 43 Eliz. it cannot avail; Because the statute of King William, to which it must conform, directs that it shall be made by the churchwardens and overseers the major part of them; or when there are no churchwardes by the overseers: and by the statute of Eliz. the churchwarand not less than two substantial householders are required be nominated overseers. Now this certificate was not grantby either one or other of these descriptions of persons: then edit can be supported as a certificate given by a township der an appointment by virtue of the statute 13 & 14 Car. 2, its of great importance to take care that a certificate Which is to be binding on the inhabitants of the township, is perly given in the manner prescribed by law. That statute ly requires that in every township of any parish, which reap the benefit of the statute 43 Eliz. there shall be apsted two or more overseers, and then if the township claim best of the act to appoint its own overseers, it must ade to the direction of the act and appoint not less than two sers, and there is a good reason for requiring the concurof the proper officers in these instances, because it is a tionary act which is to bind the inhabitants: and if the er number of overseers had been appointed, the inhabitants hare had the benefit of their consideration (which the intended to give them) whether this were a proper cerabe granted; therefore the statute of Cur. 2. has that not less than two overseers should be appointed wwship, and the statute of Will. 3. having required the date to be executed by the overseers where there are no thwardens and there having been but one overseer appointed transactions by whom this certificate was granted, it is the pauper consequently gained a settlement in Yielderstwithstanding the certificate, by his hiring and service Eat's Rep. 168.

For what time

be served.

And the office must be executed for a whole year. Thus in the office must Fittleworth v. Pulborough, Mic. 18 Geo. 2, a certificate-man was elected and sworn a tything-man, for a tything which did not extend through all the parish of Fittleworth, but comprehended that part of it where he resided: "he executed the office a little more than five months,' and then became actual chargeable, and asked relief; whereupon two justices removed him; and their order, upon appeal, was discharged.-BUT BY THE COURT. The justices had jurisdiction to remove him, though in execution of the office; he being become actual chargeable, it is not necessary that the office should extend throughout the whole parish; the act only requires the executing some annual office in the parish, but it must be executed for the space of a whole year; and the present case being an execution for les than a whole year, it did not avoid the certificate, and conse. quently did not gain him a settlement at Fittleworth. Bur row's Sett. Cas. 238.

Of what duration the office must be.

Also the office must be an annual one; for in Coldashton Woodchester, Hil. 31 Geo. 2, there was a custom to serve th office of tything-man for half a year only at a time; and th pauper having served that office once was some years afterward again appointed, and served the same office in the same paris for another half-year.-It was objected, on the one side, the this office was not an annual one. On the other it was con tended, that he had executed a public office for one whol year, for that the two halves would, under the custom the parish, amount to a whole year, especially as the offic of tything-man was annual in its nature.-BUT THE COUR were clearly of opinion, that by this custom, as here stated, it w not an annual office. Burrow's Sett. Cas. 444.

But an appointment to an annual office for a year or unt he shall be discharged,' and service therein for a part of th year is not sufficient to acquire a settlement, thus in the K. Bow, Hil. Ter. 40 Geo. 3. it appeared that the pauper # settled in Bow by apprenticeship': at a Michaelmas cou leet, holden by adjournment for the manor and borough Chumleigh on the 16th Nov. 1792, the pauper was appoint to the office of ale-taster of the borough, and duly sworn a cording to the custom of the manor to execute the said off 'for one year thence next ensuing, or until he should be lawfu ly discharged from the same.' He accordingly entered up and executed such office, until 1st Nov. 1793, when at a simil court holden by adjournment for the said borough, a new o ficer was appointed in his stead, and sworn in the same manne the tythingman, constables, and other officers were appoint at such court in a similar manner: No business is transact at the original courts, but officers are appointed at some adjour ment thereof, there is only one original court leet in the ye and that at some day within the month after Michaelmas, cording to the convenience of the steward. BY THE COUL this is not an appointment for a year from one moveable fe to another, but from one court until it shall please the ste ard to hold another: the words of the statute on which t

question arises are express, and the K. v. Fittleworth shews that they have been construed according to their plain and obvious meaning. 8Ter. Rep. 445.

X. Settlement by having an estate.

By 18 & 14 Car. 2. c. 12, it shall be lawful, upon complaint by the churchwardens or overseers to any justice within forty days after any person shall come to settle in any tene. 'ment under the value of 10. for any two justices (1 Qu.) by * their warrant to remove such person to such parish where he was last legally settled,either as a native,householder,sojourner, 'apprentice, or servant, for the space of forty days at least, un less he give sufficient security for the discharge of the parish, to be allowed by the said justices. . 1.

Which forty days continuance of such person in a parish to 'make a settlement, shall be reckoned, not from the time of 'his coming to inhabit, but from the time of the publication of a notice in writing, which he is required to deliver, of the house of his abode, and the number of his family, to the churchwarden or overseer, which said notice in writing the 'churchwarden or overseer is to read, or cause to be read pub. Ecly, in the church or chapel of the parish or town, immediately after divine service on the next Lord's day. 1 Jac, 2. c. 17.. 3. 3 Will. & Mar. c. 11. s. 3.

And no person who shall come into any parish by certificate shall be adjudged by any act whatsoever [and consequently not by giving notice] to have gained a legal settlement in such parish, unless he shall take a lease of a tenement of the value of 101. or shall execute some annual office in such parish.' 9 & 10 WL. 3. c. 11.

Before the statute of 13 & 14 Cur. 2. c. 12, any poor person might go into a parish and settle himself there, for the justices had no power to remove him: this statute was therefore made against persons who came into parishes on purpose to gain a settlement; and its intention is to prevent people from fraudulently settling in a parish by taking and renting a tenement under the yearly value of 10%.; but where a man comes into a parish to reside on his own estate, he is not within the intention of the act, for it was never designed to give the justices power to reLove a man from his own estate; and the rule now clearly settled and established is, that if the pauper comes to an estate by inheritance, limitation, or devise; or by any operation of law; or as executor or administrator (although the estate be of ever so small value,) he is irremoveable; and if he remains forty days in the possession and inhabitancy thereof, he gains a settle

ment.'

So also before the stat. 9 Geo. 1. c. 7, if a man made ever so small a purchase, he gained a settlement, even though he made It with an intent to gain a settlement. But it is now enacted, by the said stat. 9 Geo. 1. c. 7, that no person shall be deemed to acquire any settlement in any parish or place by virtue of any purchase of any estate or interest in such parish or place, whereof the consideration for such purchase doth not amount

Residing on an own for forty days.

estate of his

to the sum of 301. bona fide paid, for any longer time than such person shall inhabit in such estate; and shall then be lia"ble to be removed to such parish or place where such person was last legally settled before the said purchase and inhabi < tancy therein*.

s. 5.

Having premised this, it will be proper to detail the cases tha have occurred upon this subject.

In Harrow v. Edgeware, Ea. 11 Ann. a person settled a Harrow went into the parish of Edgeware, and was admitte into a copyhold estate for life, worth 25s. a-year, which purchased, and lived in four or five years, and then died. this was a tenement under 10l. a-year, the question was, upi the 13 & 14 Car. 2, Whether this gained him a settlement Edgeware? It was argued, that the statute hath been alwa held to mean an estate which a man takes to farm, and not estate of his own; for if a person has a freehold, he cannot removed from it, though not worth 101. a-year. And by P ker, Ch. J. Where a man has an estate for life, or an est of inheritance of his own, that gains him a settlement, thoi 'less then 101. a-year; for he cannot be removed,' and if he c not be removed, he certainly gains a settlement. Foley, 257

In the K. v. Hasfield, Ea. 13 Geo. 2. a man intermar with a woman, by whom he had the paupers Benjamin · Mary; the wife was at the time of her mariage seised of an es of the yearly value of 41. in the parish of Tirley, where she her husband lived and had these children: she dying, the said es descended to Benjamin, as her son and heir, subject to his fath tenancy by courtesy. After the death of the wife, the husband tinued, with his children, on the said estate at Tirley; and al wards took an estate of about 30%. a-year, in the parish of Hasfi and removed thither with his two children, where he resided one year and a half together with the said two children, then died on his death the said Benjamin, who was then a six years and a half old, became seised in fee of the said es at Tirley. And he and his sister, being at Tirley, with grandmother, above forty days, were removed from then Hasfield.-- By Lee, Ch. J. Benjamin is seised in fee of an e in Tirley: and it is not material quo animo how he came into parish or how long he has been in it. It is not a case in the statute of 13 & 14 Car. 2, c. 12, because, having an e of his own in the parish, he is not removeable from it. It it clear, that this Benjamin could not be removed from his hold; but as to the daughter, it is otherwise.- Probyn Chapple, Justices, concurred that Benjamin could not be moved from the parish where he had a freehold. Burrow's Cas. 147.

* But this statute doth not prevent such persons who may purchased an estate for less than 301. from gaining a settleme any of the other means permitted by the statute, such as by pay wards the public rates, and the like.-See the case of the K eutme, in p. 267 supra.

And a pauper having a freehold estate, in the occupation of a tenant to whom he had let it, gains a settlement by residing thereon 40 days with the licence of his tenant for the purpose of making some repairs, such residence being to be considered as equivalent to a residence in any other part of the parish: the judges were at first equally divided in opinion upon this point; but having taken time to consider, and looked particularly into the case of the K. v. Hasfield, they were ultimately all of opini on that it governed the present, and they accordingly decided as above. The K. v. Houghton le Spring, Hit. Ter. 41 Geo. 3, 1 East's Rep.247.

was the

waste.

In Ashbrittle v. Wyley, Mic. 11 Geo. 1, upon a special or- Living in a cotder of sessions, the case appeared to be, that thirty years since tage built on a the father of the pauper built a cottage upon the waste in Wyley belonging to the earl of Pembroke, and lived on it till his death, about three years since, when it descended to his daughter Elizabeth, then married to John Darby: that they entered and enjoyed it three quarters of a year, and then sold the possession of it to John Wyvel, who has enjoyed it ever since, without any molestation from the lord, but no original grant appears: And whether John Dorby and his family are settled in #gley, where they lived three quarters of a year in the cottage in right of his wife, or in Ashbrittle, which was the place of his last settlement before the marriage? question: and by the order of two justices, and the order of sessions, it is adjudged to be a settlement in Wyley. Br THE COURT. The order must be confirmed; he lived forty days in the capacity of a person irremovable, and that is a settlement of itself. Here has been an enjoyment for thirty years, during all which time the lord never claimed any thing. The least that can be made of it is a title by disseisin, and a descent is cast. This man had undoubtedly a title against all the world, but the lord, and even against him it may be doubtful, after so long a possession. In ejectment, he might either make or defend a title by twenty years possession. Therefore in this case there is no colour to determine against his right, when the lord does not think it to impeach it; though if he did, it would never be allow. ed to determine the title upon an order of removal, but upon an ejectment only. 2 Strange, 608.

So in the K. v. Garway, Mic. 8 Geo. 3. the pauper went and lived with his father in a cottage built upon the waste in the parish of Arcop, of the yearly value of 50s. where his father had then lived about thirty years, soon after he went to live with bis father, his father died; and he (the pauper) continued in possession of the premises for about thirty-five or thirty-six years, and paid an acknowledgment of 2s. 6d. to the lord of the mator for the last thirty years; but his father never paid any acknowledgment. THE SESSIONS confirmed an order removing the pauper from Arcop to Garway: but on a rule being grant. ed, both these orders were quashed without defence. Burrow's Sett. Cas. 632.

So in the K. v. Bitton, Mic. 9 Geo. 3, the pauper being setfed in Bitton, built a cottage, at his own expence, on the waste in the hamlet of Oldland. The pauper lived in the said