[599] _Dom. State Papers_, Chas. I., Vol. 427, 4. Aug. 1st, 1639.
We have several other places from which we have similar reports. Skenfreth, one of the hundreds of Monmouth, often sent accounts of the proceedings of the justices. One belongs to May, 1631. The justices state some of the things they did both before the Commission and afterwards. Before the Commission they provided weekly stipends for all the aged and impotent people, "sithence the said commission" they "have taken order that the same stipends shalbe contineually paied soe that none of any such poore people have made any complaint unto us for any mainetenance." Both before and after the commission they had punished rogues and since they had also placed apprentices and suppressed alehouses. Moreover the highways had been last year in better condition than for twenty years before[600].
Thus the immediate improvement effected by the commission was that the pensions were paid as well as ordered, apprentices were bound and alehouses suppressed.
In May, 1637, we have a report from the same district together with the hundreds of Ragland and Trellech. At that time apprentices were bound, rogues punished and efforts made to secure the observance of fasting days. The justices have also "taken course for provision of stock to sett the poore on worke," and have "caused to be sufficiently relieved all the aged lame and ympotent people[601]." Thus if these documents are to be believed the improvement effected in 1631 was maintained and even increased in this hundred of Skenfreth.
[601] _Ib._, Vol. 355, 63. See also Vol. 293, No. 23.
There are many other cases in which reports are sent in several times from the same place and all show that the improvement made in 1631 was continued in 1637, 1638 or 1639[602].
[602] From Whittlesford, Chilford and Radfield, Cambridgeshire, April 1631, Vol. 189, 75, the justices report there are twenty-five "townes," and state "That the impotent poore in every towne are releeved. That wee have put out in these three hundreds betweene six and seaven score apprentyces. That the able poore are provyded for or sett to worke."
From the same three hundreds. July 1638. "We are certifyed by the ouerseers for the poore that the impotent poore are relieved and the other poore are provided of worke." Do. Vol. 395, 114.