We will therefore cease to examine the system from the point of view of the administrative machinery, and instead consider, first, the relief which it afforded the various classes of poor, and secondly, the extent to which the organisation, whose nature we have described, was employed over the whole country.
CHAPTER X.
1597-1644.
METHODS OF RELIEF.
A. In Times of Emergency.
- § 1. The methods in which the Scarcity Orders of the Privy Council were executed in 1623 and 1630-1.
- a. The suppression of alehouses and restrictions of malting.
- b. The regulations for serving the markets with corn and supplying the poor in their homes.
- c. Selling corn bought by the inhabitants to the labourers under the market price.
- d. Other special methods of providing food for the poor.
- § 2. Evidence as to the success or failure of the corn regulations.
- § 3. Reasons for their adoption.
- § 4. Bearing of the scarcity measures on history of poor relief.
- a. Growth of organisation.
- b. The standard of life of the poorer classes.
- § 5. Provision of fuel for the poor in winter.
- § 6. Help afforded in times of sickness or plague.
- § 7. Contributions to sufferers from fire.
- § 8. Two characteristics of seventeenth century poor relief accentuated by this emergency relief.
- a. Little distinction between paupers and non-paupers.
- b. Little distinction between relief afforded by voluntary contributions and that provided by poor rates.
The special emergencies in which the poor most often obtained relief in the seventeenth century were those arising from bad harvests, sickness, and fire.
We will first examine the methods of supplying the poor with corn after bad harvests. We have already seen that in 1608, 1621-3, and 1629-31 the central government issued orders with this object, which closely resembled the commands which had been issued during the reign of Elizabeth. We have now to see how these orders were executed in the early part of the seventeenth century.