may do what the tithing man may, but the powers of the latter are less than those of the former.

V. SURVEYORS OF HIGHWAYS.

Appointment. Every parish is bound to keep its highways in repair, unless by reason of the tenure of lands, this care is consigned to some particular person. The care of bridges devolved upon the county. If the parish neglected the highways, it might be indicted for its neglect, but as the whole parish could not be summoned to perform the work, surveyors of the highway were chosen in every parish. They are selected by two neighboring justices.

Duties. They must execute a variety of laws for the repairs of the public highways, that is, of ways leading from town to town: (1) They must remove all annoyances in the highway, or give notice to the owner to do so, who is liable to penalties for noncompliance. (2) They are to call together all the inhabitants and occupiers of lands within the parish, six days in every year, to labor in fetching materials or repairing the highway. (3) The surveyors may be reimbursed for their purchase of materials for repairs, also for erecting guide posts, and making drains. (4) If the personal labor of the parish be not sufficient, the surveyors, with the consent of the quarter sessions, may levy a rate upon the parish, in aid of the personal duty.

VI. OVERSEERS OF THE POOR.

Origin. Till the time of Henry VIII, the poor of England subsisted entirely on private benevolence. The monasteries were their principal resource, which from charitable motives supported a numerous and idle poor, whose sustenance depended upon the alms, daily distributed from the gates of religious houses. Upon the total dissolution of these institutions, statutes were enacted, providing for the poor and impotent. The poor were of two classes: those sick and impotent, and hence unable to work, and those idle and sturdy, and therefore able, but not willing to exercise any honest employment. Edward VI founded three royal hospitals for their relief: Christ's and St. Thomas' for the impotent, through infancy or sickness, and Bridewell for the punishment and employment of the vigorous and idle. These were largely insufficient, and under Elizabeth, overseers were appointed in every parish. These must be substantial householders, and be nominated by two neighboring justices.

Duties. They are to raise competent sums for the relief of the poor, impotent, blind, and others not able to work; also to provide work for such as are able, and cannot otherwise get employment, but this latter duty is most shamefully neglected. For these purposes, they are empowered to make and levy rates upon the inhabitants of the parish, as set forth in the statute. One object of this statute was to provide raw materials, to be worked up at their several homes, instead of accumulating the poor in one common work-house, a practice which mingles the sober and diligent with those who are dissolute and idle, and destroys all endearing family connections, the only felicity of the indigent. A defect of this statute was confining the management of the poor to small parochial districts, which are frequently incapable of furnishing proper work. After the restoration, these districts were subdivided, rendering the employment of the poor even more difficult.

Settlements. By the statute of Charles II, a legal settlement was gained by birth or by inhabitancy, apprenticeship or service for forty days. To prevent frauds in acquiring a residence, notice in writing had to be given the parish officers. Subsequently other circumstances of notoriety were equivalent to such written notice.

Present Law of Settlement. This may be acquired: (1) By birth, even if the child be a bastard. Though prima facie the settlement of legitimate children is the place of birth, yet it is not conclusively so. (2) By parentage, being the settlement of one's father or mother; all legitimate children being really settled in the parish, where their parents are settled, until they acquire a new residence for themselves. (3) By marriage a new settlement may be acquired. For a woman marrying a man, who is settled in another parish, changes her settlement, the law not permitting the separation of husband and wife. But if the man has no settlement, hers is suspended during his life, if he remains in England, and is able to maintain her, but in his absence, or after his death, or during perhaps his inability, she may be removed to her old settlement. (4) By forty days residence. If a stranger comes into a parish, and delivers notice in writing of his place of abode, and the number of his family, to one of the overseers, and resides there unmolested for that time, he is legally settled thereby. The law presumes that such an one, at the date of giving such notice, is not likely to become chargeable, or he would not

venture to give it, or the parish would remove him. (5) Renting a tenement for a year of the annual value of ten pounds, together with forty days residence in the parish, gains a settlement without notice. (6) Being charged with and paying taxes in the parish. (7) Executing, when appointed, any public parochial office for an entire year, like church warden, and being resident in the parish forty days. (8) Being hired for a year, when unmarried and childless, and serving for such period. (9) Being bound an apprentice gives one a settlement in that place, where he serves forty days. (10) Having an estate of one's own, and residing thereon forty days.

Removal from Parish. All persons, not so settled, may be removed to their own parishes, on complaint of the overseer, by two justices of the peace, if he deem it likely, they will become chargeable to the parish into which they have intruded, unless they are in a way of effecting a legal settlement, as by having hired a house. In all other cases, if the parish to which they belong, will grant them a certificate, acknowledging them to be their parishioners, they cannot be removed, merely because likely to become chargeable, but only when they become actually so.

CHAPTER X.--THE PEOPLE, WHETHER ALIENS, DENIZENS OR NATIVES.

Aliens and Natives. The first division of the people is into aliens and natural born subjects. The latter are such as are born within the dominions of the English crown, the former, those who are born out of it.

Allegiance in Feudal Tenures. Allegiance is the tie or ligamen, which binds the subject to the king, in return for the protection the king affords the subject. The connection is founded in reason and the nature of government, and the name and form are derived from our Gothic ancestors. Under the feudal system, every owner of lands held them in subjection to some superior or lord, from whom or whose ancestors, the tenant or vassal had received them, and there was a mutual trust subsisting between lord and vassal, that the lord should protect his vassal

in the enjoyment of the territory he had granted him, and on the other hand, that the vassal should be faithful to his lord, and defend him against his enemies.

Oath of Fealty. This obligation on the part of the vassal, was called fidelitas, or fealty, and an oath of fealty was required by the feudal law, to be taken by all tenants to their landlords, nearly in the same terms as our oath of allegiance. There was this exception, however, in that, in the oath of fealty, a reservation existed of the faith due to a superior lord by name, under whom the landlord himself was a tenant. But when the acknowledgement was made to the absolute superior himself, who was vassal to no man, it was called the oath of allegiance. Land held by this exalted species of fealty was called a liege fee, the vassals liege men, and the sovereign, their liege lord. When sovereign princes did homage to each other for lands held under their respective sovereignties, it was simple homage, which was only an acknowledgement of tenure. In England, it becoming a settled principle of tenure, that all lands in the kingdom are held of the king as lord paramount, no oath but that of fealty could be taken to inferior lords, and the oath of allegiance was confined to the person of the king alone. By an easy analogy, the term "allegiance" soon came to signify all other engagements due from subjects to their prince.

Oath of Allegiance. The oath of allegiance, as administered for upwards of six hundred years, contained a promise to be "true and faithful to the king and his heirs, and truth and faith to bear of life and limb and terrene honor, and not to know or hear of any ill or damage intended him, without defending him therefrom." Sir Matthew Hale says of it, that "it is short and plain, not entangled with intricate clauses or declarations, and yet is comprehensive of the whole duty from the subject to his sovereign." But at the revolution, the oath being deemed to favor the notion of non-resistance, the present form was adopted, the subject only promising, "that he will be faithful, and bear true allegiance to the king," without mentioning his heirs, or specifying in what that allegiance consists.

Oaths of Supremacy and of Abjuration. The oath of supremacy is a renunciation of the pope's civil authority, while the oath of abjuration, introduced under William III, amply supplies the loose and general texture of the oath of allegiance,

recognizing the right of the king, derived under the act of settlement, engaging to support him to the utmost of his power, to disclose all traitorous conspiracies against him, and expressly renouncing any claim of the descendants of the late pretender. This oath must be taken by all persons in any office, trust or employment, and may be tendered by two justices of the peace, to any one, whom they suspect of disaffection. The oath of allegiance may be offered to all persons over twelve years of age, whether natives, denizens or aliens, in the court leet of the manor or county.

Implied Allegiance. Besides these express engagements, the law holds that there is an implied, original and virtual allegiance, owing from every subject to his sovereign, antecedently to any express promise. The formal profession, therefore, or oath of subjection, is nothing more than a declaration in words, of what was before implied in law. The sanction of an oath, in case of the violation of duty, adds perjury to treason; it only strengthens the social tie, by adding to it that of religion.

Natural Allegiance. Allegiance is of two species, natural and local, the one perpetual, the other temporary. Natural allegiance is such as is due from all men born within the king's dominions, immediately upon their birth, when at once they come under the protection of the king. It is therefore a debt of gratitude, which cannot be forfeited, cancelled or altered, by any change of time, place or circumstance, nor by anything but the concurrence of the legislature. An Englishman, who moves to China, owes the same allegiance to the king of England there as at home, and twenty years hence, as well as now. It is a principle of universal law, that the natural born subject of one prince cannot by any act of his own, not even by swearing allegiance to another, discharge his. natural allegiance to the former, for this allegiance was intrinsic, primitive and antecedent, and cannot be divested, without the concurrent act of the prince, to whom it was first due.1

Local Allegiance. This is such as is due from an alien or stranger born, for such period as he remains in the king's dominions and protection, and it ceases on his removal therefrom. Natural allegiance is perpetual, while this is but temporary. It

1 The maxim is: nemo potest exuere patriam, no one is able to cast aside his country.