Gev. Gunn A TREATISE ON THE LAW OF SCOTLAND RELATIVE TO THE POOR. BY ALEX. DUNLOP, Esq. ADVOCATE. THE SECOND EDITION. WILLIAM BLACKWOOD, EDINBURGH: AND MDCCCXXVIII. TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE DAVID BOYLE, LORD JUSTICE CLERK, PRESIDENT OF THE SECOND DIVISION OF MY LORD, When I published the former edition of this Treatise, I refrained from soliciting permission to inscribe it to your Lordship; not from any doubt of your Lordship's disposition to extend favour to my undertaking, but from an apprehension that the merits of the work might not entitle it to your Lordship's countenance. Encouraged, however, by the approbation which it has pleased your Lordship, and other Judges of the Supreme Court, to bestow upon it, I now gladly avail myself of the opportunity afforded by the publication of a second edition, to express, by thus dedicating it to your Lordship, my grateful sense of the kindness I have personally experienced from your Lordship, and my heartfelt concurrence in those sentiments of high respect and esteem for your Lordship's character and conduct as a Judge, which I share with the profession to which I belong and the public at large. With the most sincere wish that the country may long enjoy the benefit of your Lordship's important and valuable services, I have the honour to be, Your Lordship's Very faithful Servant, 8, February 25, 1828. ALEX. DUNLOP. THE alarming increase of pauperism in England, and its steady, though less rapid, progress in some parts of our own country, have, of late years, attracted general attention to the provision made by law for the relief of the poor. The valuable disquisitions and experiments of Dr. Chalmers have thrown much light on the baneful tendency, in a moral and political point of view, of a negligent administration of the Poor Laws; and a very general endeavour appears now to be made throughout Scotland, by those to whom the management of the poor is intrusted, to administer the poor's funds with due diligence and circumspection. Such being the state of public feeling, I have been struck with the want of a treatise containing a brief and practical view of our law touching the management of the poor, and I have attempted, in the following short Treatise, to supply the deficiency. There are many questions relative to this subject which have not been determined by judgments of our Courts. Such questions have either not fallen within my observation, or |