SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY 



1716 the same order was repeated and a new house of correction built at 

 Bristol for the detention of vagrants, and supposed saving of expense of their 

 transport. 1 In 1801* the cost of transport was still the same, though 6d. 

 was allowed for subsistence of the vagrant, and in 1803 the constables were 

 warned that they were expected to travel fifteen miles a day with their 

 victims, whether on foot or in a cart. But if the Act of 1672 was costly, 

 the later poor laws of 1782 and 1796, which abandoned the workhouse 

 test, and added allowances from the rates, to bring up wages to a supposed 

 minimum standard of living, proved ruinous. The Settlement Act had 

 caused endless disputes between parishes (one parish objecting to So-and-so 

 being settled on it) ; * the allowance system led to a war of classes. Employers 

 cut down wages, trusting to supplements from the rates ; rate-payers 

 struggled to keep down rates ; labourers grew more and more idle and 

 rebellious. An attempt was made to work upon the old spirit of local 

 responsibility by the Settlement Act. Tithing-men of vills were still elected,* 

 and the parish was organized as the unit of the poor law. But, in other 

 respects, local self-government was practically extinct, and the county 

 was managed chiefly by the justices of the peace. With the abandonment 

 of the old systems of justice it was still only very slowly that the ancient 

 cruel forms of punishment were dropped. In 1716 a man was put in 

 the pillory at Newnham for shooting a deer in the Forest of Dean. 

 In 1718 the ducking-stool was used for the last time at Bristol. 1 An 

 accusation of witchcraft was brought as late as 1726 against a Winch- 

 combe woman, who, however, was allowed to take out a warrant against 

 her accusers ; while about the same date occurred an appeal to a still 

 more barbarous piece of legal usage the peine forte et Jure, The criminal, 

 a house-breaker, was only induced to plead in court by the sheriff sending 

 a carpenter ' to measure his body for an engine to press him.' ' About 

 1770 whipping was revived by the justices, 7 and was a favourite form 

 of punishment till 1789, when it was objected to at quarter sessions.' In 

 1779 occurred the last case of branding in Gloucestershire, at the Gloucester 

 Booth Hall. 



In 1795 the magistrates at Gloucester drew up a table, showing what 

 they considered to be the minimum weekly income of the ' industrious poor.'' 

 Bread was then \\d. perlb. (wheat j$s. 2</. per quarter), and 8 Ibs. o'^* 

 bread per week were calculated as necessary for each member of a famiM 

 Another shilling a week was allowed for articles of necessity for the ma 

 and 8</. for the wife. This brought the weekly income up to js. $>d. p 

 week for a husband, wife and four children, with bread at the price th 

 prevalent. A sliding scale was drawn up, allowing for the rise of bread '. 

 -$\d. perlb., when the same family would receive 14*. 8</. The deficien 1 ,, 

 of a labourer's wage below this minimum was to be made good by the 

 parish.* With this allowance we may compare that made in 1681, when 

 wheat was only about 40^., to a poor woman with five children at Duntis- 



1 Record Book}. * Minute Books, vol. i. 



'The Gloucestershire Justices had in 1725 to decide a difficult problem of settlement, when a man's 

 bed was so placed that he lay in two parishes. It was determined that his settlement lay where his head lav, 

 ' as being the more honourable part ' ; J. J. Powell, Gloucestriana, ' Journ. of a Glouc. Justice.' 



4 Record Booh. * W. Hunt, op. cit. J. J. Powell, op. cit. 



' Record Books. ' Gough Glouc. 31. ' Minute Books, vol. i. 



2 169 22 





