Note 174 — Chapter VI · THE LABOURER IN 1795

Ibid., p. 654, re Litchfield. ‘In two or three small parishes in this neighbourhood, which consist of large farms, there are very few poor: the farmers, in order to prevent the introduction of poor from other parishes, hire their servants for fifty-one weeks only. I conceive, however, that this practice would be considered, by a court of justice, as fraudulent, and a mere evasion in the master; and that a servant thus hired, if he remained the fifty-second week with his master, on a fresh contract, would acquire a settlement in the parish.’