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THE

WHOLE LAW

RELATIVE TO THE

DUTY AND OFFICE

OF A

Justice of the Peace.

COMPRISING ALSO THE AUTHORITY OF

PARISH OFFICERS.

BY THOMAS WALTER WILLIAMS, ESQ.
OF THE INNER TEMPLE, BARRISTER AT LAW.

SECOND EDITION,

CONSIDERABLY IMPROVED, INCLUDING THE STATUTES AND
ADJUDGED CASES TO THE PRESENT TIME.

IN FOUR VOLUMES.

VOL IV.

LONDON:

FRINTED FOR W. CLARKE AND SONS; J. WALKER; VERNOR,
HOOD, AND SHARPE; CUTHELL AND MARTIN; J. STOCKDALE;
LACKINGTON, ALLEN, AND CO.; J. AND J. RICHARDSON;
AND B. CROSEY AND CO.

BOOL LIBR 28. MAR 1918 OXFORD

W. Flint, Printer,
St. Sepulchre's.

THE

WHOLE LAW

RELATIVE TO THE

DUTY AND OFFICE

OF

A Justice of the Peace.

SETTLEMENTS AND REMOVALS.

I. Settlement of the poor.

II. Removal of the poor.

I. Settlement of the poor.

Of this very important subject it is proposed to treat in the following order:

I. Settlement by birth.

II. Settlement by parentage.

III. Settlement by apprenticeship.

IV. Settlement by hiring and service.

V. Settlement by marriage.

VI. Settlement by notice, and forty days re sidence.

VII. Settlement by renting a tenement of 101,

[blocks in formation]

Bastards settled where born.

Exceptions to the rule.

1. Bastards

born in a place by fraud and contrivance.

VIII. Settlement by paying public taxes.
IX. Settlement by serving an office.

X. Settlement by having an estate.

XI, Concerning persons whose settlements cannot be discovered.

1. The settlement by birth.

i. The settlement by birth of bastards.

ii. The settlement by birth of legitimate children.
iii. IIow the settlement by birth may be proved.

i. The settlement by birth of bastarde.

Illegitimate children must be kept by the parish in which they are boru, for the place of the birth of a bastard child is the place of its settlement, ex necessitate; being nullius filius. Bulstrode,349. Carthew,433. 3 Salk. 166. 1 Lord Raym. 567.

But this settlement by birth may be defeated several ways. FIRST; it may be defeated if it be procured in any particular parish by fraud and contrivance; for where an unmarried ser vant girl, being with child and near the time of her delivery, was conveyed, by practice, out of the parish into an out-house situated in the outermost confines of the adjoining parish, and the child was there born; the question being, which of these two parishes was to keep the child? It was held, that though illegitimate children must be kept by the parish in which they are born; yet if any improper practice appears, then this rule doth fail, and the child shall be kept and provided for by the parish where the mother did dwell, and where she was got with child, and which had used the practice to have the child born in another parish. Tewkesbury v. Twining, Bulstrode,

349.

So in Masters. Child, Hil. 10 Wil. 3. it was ruled, that if a woman, big with child of a bastard, and settled in one parish, is persuaded by the parish officers to go into another parish on purpose to be there delivered, this fraud will make the parish chargeable where the mother was settled, though the child was not born there. But if a woman with child of a bastard come accidentally into one parish, and is persuaded by some of the parishioners to go into another parish and there is delivered, this shall not charge that parish which persuaded her. 3 Salk. 66.

So also if a woman with child he removed to a place, and

pending an ap

there delivered of a bastard child, pending an appeal against 2. Bastards the order of removal; such child is not settled where born, born after robut in the parish from which the mother was removed, if the moval, and order of removal is quashed.-This appears from the case of peal. Muck-Waltham v. Peram, Mic. 8 Wil. 3. The mother of a bastard child was a little time before her delivery removed by order of two justices from Much-Waltham to Peram; and be fore the next sessions was delivered at Peram of a bastard child. At the sessions Peram appealed, and the sessions adjudged the woman to be legally settled at Much-Waltham, and ordered her to be sent back thither. After this, an order was made for settling the child at Peram, and it was moved to quash this order; because, though regularly bastards must be maintained where born, yet where there is a contrivance that it shall be so, as seems in this case it is otherwise; and wheresoccer an order is reversed, all things happening subsequent thereunto shall be avoided thereby; and this child being born pending the order ought to be esteemed in law to be born in that parish whereunto the mother, on the appeal, is returned back.—THE COURT seemed to agree to this; and a rule was made to shew cause, but none was shewed*. 2 Salk.

474.

So in the case of Westbury ▼. Coston, Hi!. 2 Ann.-A woman big with child was removed from Westbury to Coston, and pending the order before the next sessions, was delivered of a bastard child. Coston appealed, and the order of the two justices was reversed; but by another order of two justices the child was sent back to Colon, as the place of its birth. On an appeal against this order it was confirmed. But the proceedings being removed into the King's Bench; BY THE COURT, Although there is no fraud, yet the removal was wrongful, and the subsequent reversal of the order makes all void ab initio. Fraud or not fraud is not material in this case; but the settlement of the child depends upon the removal, for if that was wrong, they shall not ease themselves by it. 2 Salk.

532.

born while he mother is re

moving.

So also a bastard born on the road while the mother is 3. Bastards passing under an order of removal, is not settled where born; for it was resolved by the court in the case of the Q. v. Jane. Grey, Ea. 10 Ann. that if the parish officers are carrying a pregnant woman from one place to another by virtue of an or der of removal, and she is delivered on the road, in transitu,

Besides, the parish officers could not remove the woman until the appeal was determined; so that they had no remedy to prevent the birth of the child in their parish-See the case of Bereham v. Waltham, reported as of Hil. Ter. 8 Will. 3. in Carth. Rep. 397. in all probability the same case as that reported in Salkeld as above, under the name of Much-Waltham v. Peram.

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