“Removing and replacing children is one of the important functions of the agency. Our children are first placed on trial, and in nearly every company some have to be replaced over and over again before they are permanently settled. But even after indentures have been executed, new _developments_ often compel removals. Such are the weaknesses of human nature, and such the instability of human affairs, that, without provision to meet the exigencies consequent upon them, _cases of extreme hardship and inhumanity would be frequent_. They who have not had experience in this kind of work are not apt to realize, and it is often difficult to persuade them of, _the imperative need of such provision_. _Children will not unfrequently get into improper hands in spite of every precaution, and in many cases success is more or less problematical._ Death of employers also, and change of circumstances, are often the occasion of removals. _Not a month goes by that does not furnish cases where, but for timely attention, suffering, mischief, and irreparable evil would result._ A little familiarity with the field work of this agency would convince its most obdurate opponent that _to leave children without recourse among strangers in a strange land is an unjustifiable procedure_.” Apart from the inhumanity of this procedure, from its unchristian character, from its proselytizing effects, we protest against it in the name of law, of right, and of human liberty. The common law of England is our heritage, and by that common law “no power on earth, except the authority of parliament, can send any subject of England out of the land against his will; no, not even a criminal. The great charter declares that no freeman shall be banished unless by the judgment of his peers or by the law of the land; and by the _habeas corpus_ act it is enacted that no subject of this realm who is an inhabitant of England, Wales, or Berwick shall be sent into Scotland, Ireland, Jersey, Guernsey, or other places beyond the seas.”[12] Chancellor Kent, in his _Commentaries on American Law_ (ii. 34), claims the same proud privilege as one of the absolute rights of American citizens, and, while declaring that “no citizen can be sent abroad,” states that the constitutions of several of the states of our confederacy contain express provisions forbidding transportation beyond the state.