A TWOFOLD PRECEDENT.

Thames Star, Volume XII, Issue 3939, 13 August 1881, Page 1

A TWOFOLD PRECEDENT.

In a passage of his article in the Nineteenth Century Mr Matthew Arnold justifies the expropriation which he proposes for bad landlords by the precedent of that of the religious orders under Henry VIII. " English landowners," he says, " start with horror at such a proposal ; but the truth is, in considering these questions of property and land, they are pedants. They look without horror on (he expropriation of the monastic orders by Henry the VJII.'s Parliament, and many of them are at this day great gainers by that transaction. Yet tbere is no reason at all why expropriating religious corporations to give their lands to individuals should not shock a man, but expropriating individual owners, to sell their lands in such a manner as tho Slate may think adfisable, should shock him so greatly. The estates of religious corporations, as such, are not, says the conservative Burke, severely but truly, ' in worse hands than estates to the like amount in the hands of this earl or that squire, although it may be true that so many dogs and horses are not kept by the religious.'" The estates of the religious orders, we may add, were confiscated to the great injury of the poor, wber. as those of bad landlords would be expropriated to their great benefit. Following ihe confiscation, the most severe laws were enacted against them. The voluntary charity by which they had been plentifully aided was replaced by the grudging help of poor rates and begging was fiercely prohibited. The report of a royal commission issued in 1834 gives us one or two striking instances of this. A law passed in the reign of King Henry decreed as follows :—" A sturdy beggar is to be whipped the first time, his right ear to be cropped the second time, and if he again offend he shall suffer execution of death as a felon and an enemy of the Commonwealth." Under Edward VI. a more lenient measure was passed, by which it was directed that beggars should be branded on the shoulder for a first offence, on a second offence made slaves of for two year—to be fed on bread and water and chained up at the wish of their master. If they tried to escape they were condemned to slavery for life, and on a second attempt were put to death. A law of Queen Elizabeth's reign ran as follows :—" All persons hereafter set forth to be rogues and vagabonds, or sturdy beggars, shall for the first offence be grievously whipped, and burned through the gristle of the right ear with a hot iron of the compass of an inch about ; for the second be doomed as felons ; and for the third, suffer death as felons without benefit of clergy."—Tablet.