View report page

17
to speak of the miscellaneous affairs of which illustration
is hereafter given.
The organisation of the parish court, by whatever
name it was known at different times, consisted of
the justices, "who had means of studying the parish,
what it could endure and what it would not tolerate,"
the coroner, the high constable of the hundred, and the
parish constables. How far they succeeded in constructing an
efficient administrative system, may be gathered from Mr.
Walcott's description of affairs shortly after the Reformation.
The butchers slaughtered their cattle in the public
streets, the people in the courts and alleys were "for the
most part . . . given to vice and idleness, living in
contempt of all manner of officers." Six houses were
found to be "kept by receivers of felons, masterless men,
and cut purses . . . whose practice was to rob the
chambers of gentlemen and artificers' shops," while a few
years later "almost every fourth house was an ale-house
harbouring all sorts of lewd and bad people."
It would be unjust, however, to hold the parochial organisation
to blame for all the shortcomings of that eventful
period. During the reign of Henry VIII. "the will of the
sovereign was the paramount authority to which all else was
brought into subjection." Before the flowing in of the wealth
which the suppression of the monasteries yielded,* the
demands of this "will" were enforced by the Council in so
oppressive a manner as, in a measure, to retard the citizens'
interest in their corporate affairs.
Benevolences.
A general exaction, then called a "benevolence,"
was resorted to, and the manner in which
the levy or collection was made leaves no doubt of its
compulsory character. The Council instructed the Commissioners
to incite all men to a loving contribution
* The yearly clear value was computed, at £131,607, hut is declared by Burnet
and others to have been much greater. According to a valuation in Speed's
Catalogue of Religious Houses, the revenues of St. Peter's Westminster, were
valued at £3,277.
C