tically found, that in the attempt to protect the baker from unjust prosecutions, the public has been exposed to material injury. In provincial districts, reports from the counties of Norfolk and Dorset especially, prove that it has been found extremely difficult, if not impossible, to convict the baker or seller of bread deficient in legal weight.

1st. Because the complaint must be made, the summons must be served upon the accused, and the bread alleged to be deficient in weight must be weighed before a magistrate, within 24 hours of the time at which it was drawn from the oven.

2nd. Because the bread supposed to be deficient in weight must be proved, when produced before the magistrate, to be in the same state as it was when taken from the baker or seller of the bread; proof of which must be afforded by a disinterested witness or witnesses on behalf of the complainant.

On the part of the baker and seller of bread, it has been proved by the evidence, taken before your Committee, of respectable bakers in the metropolis, that it is impossible for the baker, even under the present law(enacted especially for his protection), to guard against vexatious and unjust informations for selling bread deficient in weight. It appears that, unless the baker makes all the loaves in a batch,upon an average, so heavy as to cover the partial deficiency of weight in any of them (occasioned either by their particular position in the oven, or from some part of one loaf unavoidably adhering to the other), there must be loaves which, without any fraudulent intention on

the part of the baker, would be deficient in weight, and render him liable to conviction under the existing law. It is obvious, that, were the baker to adopt the only course which could give him security, namely, that of making the batch of loaves so much over weight as to cover the partial deficiency in any of them, his price being fixed upon the minimum of weight among the loaves of the batch, he must lose his profit upon the average of loaves, or sell at a rate above the prevailing prices, which would be the means of losing his customers. It has also been stated in evidence, that the present law relative to the sale of bread, fails in affording the baker protection against the persecution of common informers. Individuals of their trade, known to themselves, have been induced by threats from that class of persons to enter into a sort of compromise with them, and to bargain, that upon payment of a certain sum per month, they should be allowed with impunity (so far as the informer of the district is concerned) to impose upon the public by selling their bread deficient in weight. Whatever their original disposition therefore might be, it is natural to conclude, that after entering into such an agreement, they indemnify themselves to that amount at the expense of the public.

The nugatory, and consequently mischievous, tendency of the existing law, holding forth to the public an expectation of protection, which in reality it does not afford, thereby suspending the caution natural to all men in their own defence, appears to be sufficient objection to the existing law, so far as concerns the public; and on the part of the

baker, sufficient evidence of the inutility of the law has been afforded by the persons extensively engaged in the trade, who have been examined before your Committee.

It thence became a question, what improvement in the law could be made. A deliberate review of the subject has been taken by your Committee; and confirmed, as they have been, in their consequent opinions, by letters (subjoined in the appendix) from individuals of high respectability in different parts of the kingdom, they have no hesitation in recommending that the law relative to the sale of bread should in future (or for one year at least) impose no restriction as to the denomination of loaves, or their weight. It has been perceived, that from the act of 51st Henry 3rd, which went the length of regulating the sale of provisions generally, the legislative restrictions then imposed have from time to time gradually abated. Competition has been found, in most cases, effectually to supply the place of legislative regulation. It is competition alone which now regulates the price of bread where no assize is set. And your Committee cannot discover any reason for supposing that it would fail, upon trial, equally to secure to the public a fair quantity of this, as of all other articles of subsistence

which are sold by weight generally without restriction.

Your Committee have been in. formed, that the practice of selling bread, free from all restrictions, has prevailed in some districts of the kingdom for many years. Communication has been had with some of those districts, and the letters subjoined will state, that no complaint is there heard against the bakers, and that bread has been and continues to be sold in such places, of excellent quality and at the lowest possible price.

Your Committee have no intention to recommend an alteration of the law so far as it relates to the adulteration of bread, otherwise than by the increase in some small degree of the penalties attached to any person convicted of selling bread adulterated by the mixture of ingredients not allowed by law.

The retaining part of the existing law also, which enacts, "that every baker or seller of bread shall keep legal weights and scales in his shop to weigh bread when required by his customers, and that he shall be liable to a penalty in case of his refusal to weigh when so required," appears to your Committe to be most expedient; but when by these means facility has been afforded to the public to protect itself, it appears conclusive that the legislature can do no more to secure it against imposition.

The SELECT COMMITTEE appointted to consider the several Returns made to the Orders of this House in 1819, 1820, and 1821, relative to the sums assessed,

levied, and expended on account of the Poor in England and Wales, and to report an Abstract of the same, together with their observations thereon, to

the House:-Have, pursuant to the Orders of the House, considered the matters to them referred, and agreed to the following Report:

The returns referred to your Committee contain a statement of the total sum raised by assess ment in each parish and township in England and Wales, in the five years ending on the 25th of March, 1816, 1817, 1818, 1819, and 1820. The mode of obtaining, by orders of the House of Commons, addressed to the parish officers, information as to the amount of the assessments and expenditure on account of the poor, was suggested by the committee appointed to consider of the poor-laws, in the year 1818; and your Committee have the satisfaction of informing the House, that the returns so procured are very nearly complete. The deficiencies are very few in number, and, with the exception of one parish in Middlesex, arise in inconsiderable parishes.

This is the parish of St. Matthew, Bethnal-green; and the deficiency appears to have arisen from litigation with respect to the custody of the books, and not from any wilful neglect on the part of the churchwardens or overseers. Your Committee have directed the expenditure of this parish to be estimated in the abstract according to its amount in the preceding year.

The returns for the first four of the years mentioned were called for by an order of the House, dated 30th April, 1819, and those of the last of these years by an order of the 5th of July, 1820.

It is necessary to make this distinction, because there is a slight variation in the wording of

the two orders. That of 30th April, 1819, which was carefully framed so as to require as little as possible of detail from the officers, required an account, "showing the total amount of the money assessed and levied, upon each parish, township, or other place maintaining its own poor; distinguishing in the said account the amount of money paid out of such assessments for any other purpose than the relief of the poor." The remainder, after deducting the latter of these amounts from the former, was taken as the amount expended on account of the poor.

Before the order of 1820 was issued, it appeared that this mode of ascertaining the expenditure on account of the poor was not quite accurate, inasmuch as the sum "assessed and levied," and the sum "expended" for all purposes, do not always, in each particular year, correspond in amount. The expenditure of any year may be defrayed in part out of the balance of the assessment of the preceding year; or there may be a debt remaining at the end of the year, which in some returns may be included in the account of the sum expended, and in others excluded.

Some of the parish officers appear to have supplied this defect in the order, by stating separately the sum expended on account of the poor; and it is owing to this circumstance, that in the abstract of the four years ordered to be printed on July 17, 1820, the second and third columns, which were intended jointly to state the total expenditure, do not exactly agree in amount with the first, which contains the amount assessed and levied. The difference,

however, is very inconsiderable; and your Committee are satisfied that the corrected account now given of "money expended solely on the poor," contains a sufficiently accurate statement of the expenditure for any purpose of comparison.

The order calling for the returns of the year ending March 25, 1820, required, as before, an account of the sum assessed and levied, and also "the total amount of money expended in that year;" when from this latter sum the amount of the expenditure "for other purposes" is deducted, the remainder comes out accurately as the amount of the expenditure on account of the poor.

There may possibly still be some difference between different parishes in the mode of making up the return ; some officers may perhaps include in one column, and some in the other, monies expended in litigation and other matters immediately connected with the poor, but not applicable to their relief. The amount, how ever, of this mixed expenditure, though considerable in one point of view, does not bear so great a proportion to the whole expenditure, as to constitute a material objection to the accuracy of the returns.

The Committee have the further satisfaction of adding, that the returns under the late order have been made more promptly, and in a more regular form, than those called for in the preceding year.

It may be convenient here to observe, that in the order recently made by the House for returns for the year ending 25th March, 1821, a still further correction is made of the form. Instead of calling for the amount "assessed

and levied," the requisition is now for the amount levied only; this alteration was certainly proper, as the whole sum assessed may not always be levied within the year.

Your Committee having been instructed to report to the House an abstract of the late returns, together with their observations thereupon, conceive that they cannot more usefully execute the duty assigned to them, than by connecting the returns of the five years referred to them with those of former periods, which are to be found in the Journals and papers of the House.

Returns are already before parliament, in different degrees of detail, of the amount and expenditure of the poor-rates, in the years ending at Easter 1748, 1749, 1750, 1776, 1783, 1784, 1785, 1803, and 1813, 1814, 1815; your Committee have, therefore, included in their abstract so much of the account of those former years as can be compared with the more recent accounts: so that the House has now before it a statement of the amount of the poor-rates, at several periods, commencing in the middle of the last century, and reaching the year preceding the last.

The first statement which your Committee submit to the House, shows, in gross sums, the amount of monies assessed and levied in England and Wales, at each former period, and in each year, comprised in the late returns ; and the amount expended upon the poor, and for other purposes, with other distinctions to be found in some of the returns.

Your Committee present to the House, in the second place, an account of the sums expended in each county for the relief of the

poor only, in each of the eight years, ending on the 25th of March, 1820, being the latest period for which there are the means of giving complete yearly accounts of these eight years, the accounts of the first three are taken from the return of 1815, the others are from the returns referred to your Committee; these they have combined, in order that the eight years may be viewed together.

Your Committee have not thought it expedient to give the detailed account of each parish. The House having lately called for returns of the poor-rates, for the year ending the 25th of March, 1821, it appears to your Committee more convenient that a parochial account, embracing nine years, should be prepared early in the next session of parliament, when the House will have the additional advantage of an opportunity of considering these returns in connexion with the result of the late numeration of the people.

They have at the same time the satisfaction of informing the House that all the parochial returns, and correct abstracts in which each parish is distinguished, are carefully arranged, so as to facilitate reference by any member of the House to the return of any particular district.

The Committee lay before the House, thirdly, a statement in which the former returns, so far as they relate to the expenditure upon the poor only, are also distinguished by counties; and the eight later years are averaged in three periods: the first of three years, ending in March, 1815, being the period which was under the consideration of the CommitVOL. LXIII.

tee of 1817, and which reached to the first year of peace; the second, embracing a like period of three years, ending in March, 1818; and the third, comprising only two years to March, 1820, which may be completed to a triennial period, when the returns recently ordered shall have been received.

To this abstract, with the view of facilitating any comparisons which the members of the House may think it desirable to make, of the relative expenditure of the poor-rates in each county, with its population, your Committee have also annexed a table of the number of people in each county, according to the enumeration taken in 1811.

And they have brought from the abstract of 1815 the account of the property assessed in each county under schedule A.

They have also thought it useful to annex an account of the average price of corn in England and Wales, in such of the years ending on the 25th of March, included in their abstracts, as have occurred since the establishment of the office of Receiver of Corn Returns. The accounts of these averages already before the House are generally made up to a period of the year not corresponding with that of the poor-rate accounts; and as comparisons are sometimes made between the amount of the poor-rates and the price of wheat, they trust that this account of the prices may be acceptable to the House.

Your Committee do not feel themselves at liberty to make any observations which are not suggested by the mere inspection of the several abstracts.

These observations, they trust, 2 N