Page:History of the Fylde of Lancashire (IA historyoffyldeof00portiala).pdf/489

 with hard work, spare diet, and whipping, and it is called the House of Correction." The present gaol of Preston was not completed until 1789, and by force of habit the expressive title of its predecessor has clung to it.

In 39 Elizabeth, 1597, an act came into force by which all previous legislation on the subject under consideration was repealed, and which decreed that overseers of the poor should be appointed in every parish, whose duty it should be to levy a rate upon the inhabitants for the support of the indigent, under the direction and with the approval of the local magistrates; in addition there were special regulations for the treatment of rogues, vagrants, and able beggars, for whom whipping and the stocks were ordered, after undergoing which punishments these idlers were to be returned at once to their native parishes and placed under the guardianship of the local authorities there.

Four years later certain modifications were made in the early part of the last statute, but the main principle of individual taxation by overseers, under the superintendence of justices of the peace, was retained unaltered. The chief objects of the law as it stood at the end of 1601 were—to relieve the lame, sick, aged, impotent, and blind; to compel others of the poor to work, and to put out their children as apprentices.

At that time any one leaving his employment and wandering beyond the boundaries of his parish without any ostensible means of gaining a livelihood was liable to be arrested and punished as a vagabond, in addition he was compelled to return to his own district in disgrace; so that whether a law confining labourers to their own neighbourhoods existed then or not, it is certain that they had little inducement to venture forth amongst strangers.

In 1662, during the reign of Charles II., the Law of Settlement was passed, by which all members of such classes as were likely to become at some period or other chargeable to the parish rates, were compelled to settle themselves on the parochial district to which they were connected by birth, marriage, apprenticeship, or similar ties; and upon which parish alone they would subsequently have any claim. In this way the unfortunate peasantry and labouring population were more securely than ever imprisoned within their parishes, for if they escaped the fate of the rogue and vagabond, and obtained work in another part of the