ished and ordered in
manner and form as is above rehearsed of strong beggars; and that all
proctors and pardoners, and all other idle persons going about in counties
or abiding in any town, city, or borough, some of them using divers subtle,
crafty, and unlawful games and plays, and some of them feigning themselves
to have knowledge in physick, physnamye, and palmistry, or other crafty
science, whereby they bear the people in hand that they can tell their
destinies, dreams, and fortunes, and such other like fantastical
imaginations, to the great deceit of the king's subjects, shall, upon
examination had before two justices of the peace, if by provable witness
they be found guilty of such deceits, be punished by whipping at two days
together, after the manner before rehearsed. And if they eftsoons offend in
the same or any like offence, to be scourged two days, and the third day to
be put upon the pillory, from nine o'clock till eleven the forenoon of the
same day, and to have the right ear cut off; and if they offend the third
time, to have like punishment with whipping and the pillory, and to have
the other ear cut off."

It would scarcely have been expected that this Act would have failed for
want of severity in its penalties; yet five years later, for this and for
some other reasons, it was thought desirable to expand the provisions of
it, enhancing the penalties at the same time to a degree which has given a
bloody name in the history of English law to the statutes of Henry VIII. Of
this expanded statute[79] we have positive evidence, as I said, that Henry
was himself the author. The merit of it, or the guilt of it--if guilt there
be--originated with him alone. The early clauses contain practical
amendments of an undoubtedly salutary kind. The Act of 1531 had been
defective in that no specified means had been assigned for finding vagrants
in labour, which, with men of broken character, was not immediately easy.
The smaller monasteries having been suppressed in the interval, and
sufficient funds being thus placed at the disposal of the government,
public works[80] were set on foot throughout the kingdom, and this
difficulty was obviated.

Another important alteration was a restriction upon private charity.
Private persons were forbidden, under heavy penalties, to give money to
beggars, whether deserving or undeserving. The poor of each parish might
call at houses within the boundaries for broken meats; but this was t