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The very unequal price of labour which we frequently find in

England, in places at no great distance from one another, is

probably owing to the obstruction which the law of settlements

gives to a poor man who would carry his industry from one parish

to another without a certificate. A single man, indeed who is

healthy and industrious, may sometimes reside by sufferance

without one; but a man with a wife and family who should attempt

to do so, would, in most parishes, be sure of being removed; and,

if the single man should afterwards marry, he would generally be

removed likewise. The scarcity of hands in one parish, therefore,

cannot always be relieved by their superabundance in another, as

it is constantly in Scotland, and I believe, in all other

countries where there is no difficulty of settlement.