Note 302 — Chapter VIII

Other differences between the two Acts were as follows:

1597-8.

(1) Four Overseers were to be nominated yearly in Easter week.

(2) Every inhabitant or occupier of lands in the parish was to be assessed.

(3) People refusing to work were to be sent to the House of Correction.

(4) A girl might be apprenticed until 21.

(5) In 1597-8 the Mayors or Head Officers of Corporate Towns being justices of the peace had the same authority within their towns as justices of the peace in the country.

(6) If a parish be in two counties or partly in a county and partly in a borough the justices or head officers of the towns were to "deal and intermeddle" only within their own "Liberty."

1601.

(1) Four, three or two Overseers were to be nominated according to the size of the parish in Easter week or within a month after Easter.

(2) In 1601, the liability of the parish, vicar, owner of tithes impropriate and of saleable underwoods and of the occupiers of houses is specially mentioned.

(3) In 1601 they might be sent to the House of Correction or gaol, probably because there was not yet everywhere a House of Correction.

(4) If she married she was released at the time of her marriage.

(5) In 1601, these powers were extended and the Town officials had not only the same authority as the justices out of their sessions and at their sessions, but the same power as was appointed "to any two or more of them or to the justices of the peace in their Quarter Sessions." Every Alderman of the City of London in his Ward had the same power as one or two justices in the county.

(6) If the parish were in two counties or partly in a county and partly in a borough there were only the one set of Overseers, but the justices or Mayors &c. were to be responsible for the execution of the Act only within the part of the parish in their own counties or borough and the Overseers were to account to both.

(7) In 1601 the penalty on justices for neglecting to nominate Overseers was fixed at £5.

(8) A special order was made that the island of Foulness should be treated as a parish.

(9) It was also provided that if an action for trespass should be brought against anyone acting in accordance with the provisions of the statute, it should be lawful for him to plead "Not Guilty" or to plead the authority of the Act. He was to be entitled to treble damages "by reason of his wrongfull vexacon."

Between the passing of these two Acts a series of resolutions was circulated which related to the statute of 1597. These were attributed to the judges and if they correctly stated the law several of the new clauses of 1601 were already legally binding. Thus four of the resolutions were as follows:

Res. 16. By this word parents is understoode a father or a grandfather, mother or grandmother, being persons able.

Res. 17. Within the word children is included any childe, or grandchilde, being able.

Res. 18. Parsons or Vicars &c. bee bound (as inhabitants) to the relief of the poore as wel as others that inhabite within the parish.

Res. 19. Everie one that hath Tithes impropriate, coale mines or lands in manuel occupation &c. is chargeable. And so for such as haue saleable woods proportioning the same to an annual benefite.

W. Lambard, Eirenarcha, ed. 1599 after p. 206. See E. Cannan, Hist. of Local Rates, p. 75.