that there should be no beggar in the country, and should provide for the impotent, the action would be praiseworthy and lawful."" In this sentence were suggested all the reforms which began to be adopted by one state and city after another for the remedy of what was everywhere an intolerable evil. As adopted by the most enlightened communities, these reforms consisted in the prohibition of all begging, compulsory taxation for the relief of the deserving poor, the providing of work for the ablebodied, and the responsibility of each town and parish for its own destitute indwellers. Let us see to what extent these reforms found place in Scotland, as by so doing we shall have a fuller illustration of the degree to which the nation was awake to the advancing thought of the time. And in this case, also, we shall mainly draw upon the Burgh Records of Edinburgh as containing the fullest details regarding the subject, and at the same time accurately representing the procedure of the other Scottish burghs.

In 1536 we find the medieval method of dealing with the poor in full working. An ordinance of that year prescribes that all strange beggars should quit the town under the penalty of being branded on the cheek, and that of the native poor only such as were unfit for work should be licensed to beg."3 The frequency of this order in all the burghs proves how completely it failed of its object. Doubtless the strange beggars were got rid of for the time,

but it was not long before they returned in greater force than ever; and, when their presence once more became intolerable, the time-honoured decree again went forth with the same inevitable result. Under the year 1555, however, we come upon an entry in the Records which points to a new departure in dealing with the perennial evil. A commission of four citizens was appointed to devise means for the support of the deserving poor and for the expulsion of the sturdy beggars." Four years later (1559) a further step was taken in the same direction. A committee of sixteen, four for each quarter of the town, was charged with the express duty of discovering able-bodied mendicants and forcibly ejecting them." This appointment of a commission charged with the specific responsibility of dealing with the poor was doubtless borrowed from the example of continental towns, where it had been in practice almost from the beginning of the century.

Another innovation on mediæval methods of dealing with the poor was the imposition of a compulsory tax for their support. In the Middle Age their maintenance had been left to the goodwill of the charitable, but thinkers and statesmen alike had become convinced that obligatory contribution was indispensable to cope with the increasing destitution in the cities and towns. It was by slow degrees, however, that this policy was realised both in Scotland and England. The well-known Act of

Elizabeth, passed in 1563, imposed the alternative of the payment of a poor-tax or imprisonment; and about the same date we find a similar policy adopted in Edinburgh. In 1560 merchants and craftsmen were compelled to provide for their own poor on pain of distraint," and in 1565, some two years after the passing of the Act of Elizabeth, the Town Council, at the instance of the Privy Council, took the decisive step of imposing a general poor-tax on the whole body of the citizens. The provost, bailies, Council, and deacons of crafts, all "with ane voice," we are told, decided that a quarterly tax should be raised for the benefit of the poor and for such as were engaged in the service of the Kirk." But this well-meant enactment, copied from the example of foreign cities, proved to be a counsel of perfection. The very year in which it was to take effect the beggars of the town grew so importunate that officials had to be stationed at the church doors to prevent their clamour from disturbing the Church service. 18 A compulsory tax being found impracticable, there was no alternative but to recur to voluntary contribution, mainly raised at the doors of the churches. Still the idea of a compulsory tax was not lost sight of. In 1575, in the reign of Mary's successor, another attempt was made to levy a forced contribution. Every Saturday afternoon, between the hours of one and three, officials sat in St Giles's Church to receive it-the bell ringing all the time to remind the indwellers of

their duty." The following year the Council had sorrowfully to announce that its act had again proved abortive. It had been its hope to sweep the town of every beggar by its heroic measure—an endeavour which had been attended by a certain degree of success in certain foreign towns; but, the requisite means being denied, the Council had no alternative but to fall back on old methods and grant the customary begging licence to the accredited poor.

Thus far the Edinburgh authorities had at least shown that they were fully awake to the reformed methods of dealing with the poor which had been adopted in other countries. They had applied, though unsuccessfully, the principle of compulsory contribution, and by the appointment of committees for each quarter of the town they had sought to ensure an accurate census of the destitute. But there were two other reforms which had been adopted elsewhere, and which had marked the greatest advance on mediæval charity. The one was the establishment of efficient hospitals for the impotent and deserving poor; the other, the provision of work for such as were able-bodied. As was already said, the hospitals founded by the Medieval Church had everywhere ceased to fulfil their ends, having for the most part become mere comfortable benefices for churchmen. Through the increasing population of the towns and the consequent increase of poverty the necessity of genuine

hospitals became everywhere more urgent; and in no Scottish burgh was the need more pressing than in Edinburgh, to which, as its records inform us, greater numbers of poor resorted than to any other town in the kingdom." The fall of the ancient Church and the confiscation of its property seemed to offer the heaven-sent means for providing necessary houses for the sick and destitute; and in all the Scottish burghs the authorities exerted themselves to divert a proportion of the confiscated treasure to this object. In 1561, within a year after the national change of religion, the Edinburgh Town Council registered a proposal to devote the annual rents of the Church property within the burgh to the erection of hospitals and to other pious uses;" and in 1562 they addressed a petition to Mary, praying that the site of the demolished monastery of Greyfriars might be assigned to them for the erection of a hospital." With the result of the petition we are not here concerned; what we have to note is that in Scotland, as in other countries, there had been awakened an intelligent and active desire to deal with a problem which apparently to the end of time will continue to exercise the ingenuity of legislators.

But the most important reform connected with the treatment of the poor, which had been adopted in certain Continental cities, was the providing of work for the class of able-bodied beggars. The legislation of all countries had insisted that this