5 Whart. 430 | Pa. | 1840
The opinion of the Court' was -delivered by
As our system of poor laws had its origin in that of England, and as many,of her statutory provisions were re-enacted here, we must turn to some of them to have a view of the whole ground in contest. By the 3 & 4 W. & M. c. 11, “ If any unmarried person, not having a child or children, shall be lawfully hired into any parish or town for one year, such service shall be judged a good settlement therein.” The insufficiency of this was that it went no further than the 5 Eliz. c. 4, which also prohibited a retainer for less than a year; and the insolence of servants, it is-said in Dunsfold v. Ridgwick, (2 Salk. 535,) gaining a settlement, as they did by the 12 Car. 2, led the way to the 8 & 9 W. 3, c. 30, by which it was enacted, “ that no person so hired as aforesaid, shall be adjudged or deemed to have a good settlement in any parish or township, unless such person shall continue or abide in the same service during the space of a whole year.” Hence, it became indispensable to a settlement, that there should have been both a hiring and service for a -year.. Ourlaw seems to consider service alone as the meritorious cause, and to require that there should' have been a contract for it, only as a proof th.at it was valuable, and distinguish- ■ able, in that respect, from those feeble and trifling acts which are sometimes performed in requital of a gratuitous maintenance: in other words, to show that, instead of having been a benefit to the township as a pi’óducer, the pauper had been a burthen to it as a consumer, from the beginning. In the ninth section of the statute of 1836, it is enacted, that a settlement may be gained “, by any unmar- '
Order of the sessions affirmed.