[320] Order of Wiltshire justices, Michaelmas, 1600, that three of their number shall call certain constables and others before them, “and examine them what overplus of money is remaining in their hands w[hi]ch they have collected of their hundredes for anie service whatsoever, and if there be anie founde remayning the said Justice to distribute the same amongst the inhabitants of the same hundredes according to their discretion.” Rec. of Wilts Quarter Sess. in Wilts Arch, (etc.) Mag., xxi, 85.

[321] According to the 22 Hen.  VIII c. 5, where it cannot be known who ought of right to repair a bridge, the justices of the district shall call before them the constables of the parishes of the surrounding hundreds, or of the whole shire, and “with the assent of the ... constables or [chief] inhabitants,” tax every inhabitant of the towns and parishes of the shire (if necessary).  This looks like a county bridge tax, but in practice the justices either threw a lump sum on a hundred, or on a parish, and left each parish to raise this sum according to local rating.  Such, at least, would seem to be the usual practice according to the churchwardens accounts, which contain many lump payments made to constables for bridges.

[322] See Wilts justices order, 20 Eliz., Wilts Arch. (etc.) Mag., xxi, 80-1.  Cf. ibid., 16, the appeal of Hilprington and Whaddon that they have been compelled by the inhabitants of Melkesham to pay a third part with the last named parish of these lump assessments, though the acreage of Melkesham is much greater than either of theirs, “and far better ground.”

[323] See p. 81, note 91 supra.

[324] John Lister, West Riding Session Rolls, 85.  As early as 14 Eliz. c. 5, sec. 17, city or parish officers might remove alien poor to their places of birth, if such aliens had resided in their adopted parishes not longer than three years.

[325] J.W.  Willis Bund, Cal.  Worcester Quar.  Sess.  Rec.,i, p. clxxxii.  The appearance of a bastard was a portentous event.  See the many ridings to and fro across country to ecclesiastical and civil magistrates in the Ashburton Acc’ts (Butcher, The Parish of Ashburton), p. 47 (1576-7).  The Devonshire justices order, Easter 1598, that every woman who shall have a bastard child shall be whipped:  Hamilton, Quarter Session from Eliz. to Anne, 32.  Cf. the item:  “paide for carriage of an Irish woman into Fynsburie feildes who was delivered of a childe under the stockes.”  Brooke and Hallen, St. Mary Woolnoth and St. Mary Woolchurch Haw (London) Acc’ts, s. a. 1587.

[326] Wilts Quart.  Sess. in Wilts Arch, (etc.) Mag., xxii, 17.

[327] Willis Bund, loc. cit. supra, p. 8.  From 1599 to 1642 there were twenty-four indictments for not laying four acres to a cottage at the Worcester sessions. Ibid., Table of indictments for all offences, p. lvii ff.  Cf.  Wilts Quarter Sess.  Rec. in Hist.  MSS.  Com.  Rep. on Var.  Coll., i (1901), 66.  W.J.  Hardy, Herts Co.  Rec.  Sess.  Rolls (1905), i, 5, et passim.  Norfolk Archaeology, x (1888), 159. Les Reportes del Cases in Camera Stellata (ed.  W.P.  Baildon), passim.