Page:History of the Fylde of Lancashire (IA historyoffyldeof00portiala).pdf/488

 of the stocks-legislature. In 1551 it was decreed that a register of destitute persons should be kept in each parish, and that alms should be collected in Whit-week, whilst on the Sunday following, during divine service at church, "the collectors should gently ask and demand of every man and woman what they of their charity would give weekly towards the relief of the poor." The funds so obtained were to be distributed amongst the poor "after such sort that the more impotent might have the more help, and such as could get part of their living the less." Eleven years later a statute ordained that if any person refused to contribute alms when called upon he should be summoned before a justice, who would determine the amount he had to pay, and commit him to gaol in case of further refusal. The legislative body of Queen Elizabeth passed "An Act for the punishment of vagabonds and the relief of the poor and impotent," by which justices of the peace were instructed to register the names of all the impotent poor who had been born within their several districts, or been existing there on alms within the three preceding years; to assign to them convenient places for dwellings or lodgings, in case the parish had not already undertaken that duty of its own free will; to assess the inhabitants to a weekly charge; and to appoint overseers of the poor, having authority to exact a certain amount of work from those candidates for relief who were not entirely disabled from labour by age, sickness, or deformity. In 1575-6 it was ordered that a stock of wool or hemp should be provided in the different parishes for the purpose of "setting the poor at work," and that "Houses of Correction" should be established, in which vagrants or tramps were to be detained, the able-bodied being furnished with employment until a service was found for them, and the infirm transferred to an alms-house as soon as practicable. The "Houses of Correction," the origin of our workhouses, were directed to be built in large cities, or in the central towns of wide districts, thus the one for the Fylde was situated at Preston, an old college of Grey Friars lying to the south of Marsh Lane being converted to that use. Dr. Kuerden described this building more than two centuries ago as the "old Friary, now only reserved for the reforming of vagabonds, sturdy beggars, and petty larcenary thieves, and other people wanting good behaviour; it is the country prison to entertain such persons