which should make the acquirement of a settlement a matter of less difficulty. This end the new law did not at all accomplish, but on the contrary it hedged about the acquirement of settlement with more complexities and difficulties than had characterized the earlier provincial law. With some unimportant exceptions it required ten years' residence, and payment of all state, county and town taxes, during five years out of the ten.

New conditions of labor, as well as simplicity and economy in administration, demanded further that a settlement should lapse on the acquirement of a new settlement. Here again the law failed. A settlement once gained was not defeated by the subsequent acquirement of a settlement outside the commonwealth, but lasted until defeated by a new settlement within the commonwealth. Consequently a person who removed out of the commonwealth always retained the rights of his settlement in Massachusetts, and passed them on to his children; so that he or any of his descendants forever thereafter might become chargeable upon the town where the family had originally settled. Relief officers outside the commonwealth exercised the privilege thus given them freely. Paupers born outside the commonwealth were put on some Massachusetts town in virtue of a settlement gained by some remote ancestor. Naturally under this act the pauper roll of the state lengthened.1

There were those, too, who saw clearly the evil which resulted from the statute: in 1832-3 a legislative commission recommended its repeal. This commission believed that the state poor might better be left to the care of cities, towns, and counties. It proposed that the state make grants to the towns, or to such relief districts as might be established, in proportion to population, for building work-houses, etc.; and further that the state take measures to secure approved plans for such houses and furnish the towns or relief districts therewith. Recommendations urging upon the legislature such radical

A law of 17891 had authorized the town to commit to the work-houses foreigners and other persons not legally settled, and to exhibit to the general court an account of the expense thus undergone―less the earnings of the inmates for allowance out of the state treasury. The commonwealth made no direct provision for the relief of unsettled persons, but left the administration of such relief to the towns, which were reimbursed out of the state treasury. And the towns drew upon the common treasury pretty liberally. During the period 1791-1820, according to a report made by Mr. Josiah Quincy, the burden of the state increased five-fold, while the population did not double. Such an increase in the number of state paupers, relatively to the town and county poor, resulted naturally under a law which made it very difficult for new comers to gain settlements. Nevertheless the law remained practically unaltered until after the middle of the century.2

action naturally failed: the legislators feared-possibly they were justified in fearing-that the repeal of all settlement laws might lead to confusion and trouble. It is certainly true, however, that the repeal of these laws at this time would have removed one fruitful source of expense, litigation, and suffering. Legislators see more readily the benefits to their respective towns arising from a law of settlement which leaves numerous poor dependent upon the charity of the state, than the benefits to the commonwealth and thus indirectly to the towns, arising from a simple and humane local administration of public aid which avoids the needless expense undergone first in the collection of necessary funds by the commonwealth, then in the disbursement of those funds through irresponsible agents. Considerable leakage can hardly be avoided where so many transfers take place.

In 1830 a commission appointed by the legislature prepared a table of the amounts expended by the state each year from 1793 to 1830: in 1793 the state expended $14,424.71; in 1801, $28,100.08, or about double the amount expended in 1793; in 1811 the amount was $52,129.92; in 1820, $72,662.54 (in this year the separation of Maine and Massachusetts was effected); in 1830, $66,583. (Report of the Board of State Charities, 1864, p. 236 et seq.)

'Laws of Massachusetts, chapter 32, 1789.

2 An amendment, of small importance (chapter 94, 1822) repealed

The old law requiring masters of vessels to file a list of their passengers with some magistrate in port, and to give bonds, came up for re-enactment and revision in 1820. It was entitled "An Act to prevent the introduction of Paupers from foreign ports or places." Masters were required to leave with overseers of the poor or with selectmen a list of passengers, and of their places of residence, under penalty of $200. If any passenger seemed likely to become chargeable, the master must within five days enter into a bond, not exceeding $500 for each passenger, to "indemnify and save the town harmless." In case the person became chargeable any one might bring a suit against the master for the amount of the bond, half of which went to the commonwealth and half to the prosecutor. Eleven years later the amount of the bond was reduced from $500 to $200.2 One or more of the owners of the vessel, if resident in the town where the passengers were to be landed, might sign this bond with the master, to save not only the city and the town, as provided in the former act, but “also the Commonwealth of Massachusetts from all manner of charge and expense" which might arise "during the full term of three years then next to come.' The mayor and aldermen, or the selectmen, to whom the master was required to give his list of passengers, in cases where no public charge seemed likely to follow, might dispense with the bond; or the master might if he chose pay five dollars into the town or city treasury for each alien landed, and if he chose so to do no bond

a portion of section 2, chapter 8, 1794, substituting a provision that a citizen twenty-one years of age, having an estate of inheritance or freehold in any town, district, or city, might gain a settlement by living on the same three years successively.

1 Ibid., chapter 290, 1820.

could be required of him. If the master with the intention of evading the act landed a passenger at some other port than that for which his vessel was destined, he forfeited $100 for each passenger so landed. If any landing were made at the regular port in contravention of the act the master, owner or owners, consignee or consignees, of the vessel severally forfeited the sum of $200 for each passenger so landed.

As immigration into the state increased each year the duties imposed upon the local officers became more onerous, until in 1837' the legislature ordered that there be appointed in each seaport, by the local authorities, a special officer to conduct the examinations on board all vessels entering with alien passengers. It was enacted that no "lunatic, idiot, maimed, aged or infirm persons, incompetent in the opinion of the officer so examining, to maintain themselves, or who have been paupers in any other country," be allowed to land until a bond was put on file, for $1,000, that such indigent person should not become a town, city or state charge within ten years. No other alien passenger might land until the master, owner, consignee or agent paid two dollars to the officer, to be used by the city or town in support of its foreign paupers. In 1840 the legislature required town and city treasurers to make annual returns of monies received from alien passengers, and of money expended in their relief and support; and required them further, on penalty of $500, to pay into the treasury of the commonwealth any balance of such monies remaining unexpended at the end of the year2.

1 Ibid., chapter 238, 1837. 2 Ibid., chapter 96, 1840.

Heretofore the administration of the alien-passengers acts had been left to the towns, but the interests of the commonwealth were obviously involved, since great numbers of the aliens came upon the commonwealth for support. Accordingly the legislature authorized the governor, in 1848,1 to appoint in the cities and towns where he deemed the presence of such officials necessary—presumably in the larger ports-superintendents of alien passengers to execute the law,-i. e., to notify pilots and carry on examinations. The governor fixed the salary of these officials with the sole provision that the salary never exceed the amount of alien-passenger money collected at the port. Masters of vessels were required to report within twenty-four hours to these superintendents the name, age, sex, occupation, with last place of residence and condition of each passenger. The provisions regarding the bonding of lunatic and indigent passengers, the collection of two dollars head money on all aliens landed, remained as provided in former acts, except that the $1,000 bond was henceforth to be a guarantee that the person bonded should never become a town, city, or state charge. Any sick or needy passenger whom the master would neither bond nor aid might be landed, and if such person became chargeable within ten years, the town or city might bring an action against the master for all expenses incurred. The superintendents were to render quarterly accounts to the state treasurer, and to pay into the state treasury any surplus over their salary. In 1850 the

2

1 Acts and Resolves of Massachusetts, chapter 313, 1848.

? The act further instructed the state treasurer to publish and forward to every city and town in the commonwealth, in May, September, and January, an abstract of information concerning alien passengers. In towns where the governor appointed no superintendent, the overseers of the poor performed the duties prescribed by the act. For each passenger landed in contravention of the act the "master or commanding officer, and the owner or consignee" severally forfeited $500.