ABSTRACT
The real aim of the 43 Eliz. c. 2 had been “to set on work‥ all such persons, married or unmarried, who have no means to maintain themselves, and use no ordinary and daily trade of life to get their living by.” Accordingly the chief activities of the Privy Council, before the Civil War, had been directed towards the compelling of parishes to provide a stock for the Poor. But for work of this character the organization of the parish was totally unfitted, and as soon as the constraining hand of the central government was removed, the parishes began to flag in their exertions; and by the time of the Restoration there were very few parishes that made any pretence of employing the Poor. Occasionally, during the last part of the century, Quarter Sessions reprimanded the slackness which the parishes displayed in this direction, but even their reprimands were more formal than earnest. For instance, the North Riding Quarter Sessions, as late as 1693, issued a series of general directions to the Chief Constables for transmission to the petty constables; and among them was the injunction, “That they also give notice to the Overseers of the parish to see that a convient stock of flax, hemp, and wool and other ware and stuff be provided towards the setting on work of such as are able to work but cannot otherwise find employment.” 1 Such incidents, however, were not general, being but the relics of a disused custom.
