Settlement is that right which a parishioner becoming impotent or poor has of claiming relief from the funds raised by means of the poor's rate, by virtue of the social relationship or connection which subsists between him and the other members of the parish. This right is always acquired in that parish or place in which parishioners have acquired their last legal settlement.

The whole experience of the poor law shows, with what a degree of selfishness parishes deal with those upon whom they look as strangers to themselves; they have never hesitated to condemn a man to the worst evils if he was a charge to them and they could remove him. There has been no want of vigour on the part of parishes in dealing with those classes of poor whom they did not recognise as their own.

‘Anybody can have roots if they want them’, I said.

‘Human beings are like strawberry plants.’