defective in that no specified means had been assigned for finding vagrants in labour, which, with men of broken character, was not immediately easy. The smaller monasteries having been suppressed in the interval, and sufficient funds being thus placed at the disposal of the Government, public works[1] were set on foot throughout the kingdom, and this difficulty was obviated.
Another important alteration was a restriction upon private charity. Private persons were forbidden, under heavy penalties, to give money to beggars, whether deserving or undeserving. The poor of each parish might call at houses within the boundaries for broken meats; but this was the limit of personal almsgiving; and the money which men might be disposed to offer was to be collected by the churchwardens on Sundays and holidays in the churches. The parish priest was to keep an account of receipts and of expenditure, and relief was administered with some approach to modern formalities. A further excellent but severe enactment empowered the parish officers to take up all idle children above the age of five years, 'and appoint them to masters of husbandry or other craft or labour to be taught;' and if any child should refuse the service to which he was appointed, or run away 'without cause reasonable being shown for it,' he might be publicly whipped with rods, at the discretion of the justice of the peace before whom he was brought.
