[408] See p. 154 supra.
[409] Michael Dalton, The Countrey Justice, ed. 1655, p. 115. The resolutions are given in the form of answers to questions submitted to the judges on particular points of law. They decided among other things, that a man must take an apprentice if the justices so ordered whether payment were made or not; that all the lands in the parish must be rated equally, but that an extra sum might be levied from a man "for his visible ability" within the parish; and also various points concerning settlement. One question and answer are as follows:
Qu. If one who is under the age of 30 years and brought up in husbandry or a maid servant, or brought up in any of the arts or trades mentioned in the statute, 5 Eliz. cap. 4, and not enabled according to that stat. to live at his or her own hand, shall be warned by two justices of the peace to put him or her self in service by a day prescribed by them, and shall not doe the same accordingly, but shall after continue living at his or her own hand, what course shall be taken with such a person and how punished?
Resol. Such persons being out of service, and not having visible means of their own, to maintain themselves without their labour, and refusing to serve as a hired servant, by the yeer, may be bound over to the next Sessions or Assises, and to be of good behaviour in the mean time, or may be sent to the house of correction. These resolutions of the judges are quoted by Dalton as having great authority.
[410] Privy Council Register, 16 Oct., 1633.
[411] Dom. State Papers, Chas. I., Vol. 187, No. 22.
[412] Dom. State Papers, Chas. I., Vol. 186, No. 16.
[413] In 1631 also a dispute about a poor rate in Marlborough was referred to the Lords of the Council and was sent by them to the Lord Chief Justice and judges of assize. Privy Co. Reg., 13th May, 1631.
[414] See Appendix.
[415] See supra, p. 142.