T5 



Communicated by R. W. Mebeiman, Clerk of the Peace. 



REIGN OF QUEEN ELIZABETH. 



(Continued from Vol. xs., p. 341). 



IX. — Relief of the Poor. — Poor Prisoners : Maimed Soldiers. 



^HE power already referred to, of binding- poor children as 

 apprentices, was one expressly conferred upon Overseers by 

 the famous " Act for the Relief of the Poor," passed in Elizabeth's 

 reign. Of that oft debated Statute no further debate is here pro- 

 posed. Its operations were in great part parochial, the principal 

 duties which it laid upon the Court of Quarter Sessions were the 

 levy of contributions " for the relief of the poor prisoners of the King's 

 Bench, and Marshalsea, and also of such hospitals and almhouses 

 as shall be in the said county," and the yearly appointment of two 

 treasurers to receive and administer the contributions so levied. The 

 surplus was to be applied for the relief " of those that sustain losses 

 by fire, water, the sea, and other casualties." Examples abound in 

 the Sessions Minutes of judgments on offences against this act and 

 against the Poor Law which was in force before it. Presentments 

 and punishments are recorded of persons — who neglected to give to 

 the poor — who refused to become collectors for the poor — or to pay 

 their proportion of the rate. 



The loss of the great rolls or Sessions Bundles of this reign, may 

 probably have removed the only records which existed of the assess- 

 ments made by the court on the several parishes within the county ; 

 the only rate set forth in the minutes of Elizabethan days, is one 

 for a collection of gaol money given at length at p. 82, infra. 



Even before civilian indigence had thus been alleviated by a 



