. 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_.

[328] Bund, _loc. cit_., p. clxxxiii.

[329] Geo. A. Wade, _An English Town that is still ruled by an
Oligarchy_ (Dalton-in-Furness), _Engl. Illust. Mag_., xxv (1901).

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