[Sidenote: 4. Action of Privy Council and administration between 1597 and 1605.]
The directions of the Privy Council in 1597 seem to have had an immediate effect both as regards measures of relief and measures of repression.
As regards the repressive measures and the efficacy of Houses of Correction the opinion of Lord Coke is decisive. He had many opportunities of knowledge and had no reason for not being impartial. Speaking of the employment and correction of vagrants he says, "And this excellent work is without question feasible. For, upon the making of the statute of 39 Eliz. and a good space after whilest Justices of the Peace and other officers were diligent and industrious there was not a rogue to be seen in any part of England, but when Justices and other Officers became tepidi or trepidi Rogues etc. swarmed again." Speaking of gaols and Houses of Correction he tells us, "Few or none are committed to the common gaol amongst so many malefactors but they come out worse then they went in. And few are committed to the House of Correction or Working-House, but they come out better[576]." For a little time therefore vagrants were repressed, and the discipline and relief afforded in Houses of Correction were very efficacious.
There was also an improvement with regard to the administration of relief to the more deserving classes of the poor. We have already seen that special energy was displayed in the West Riding of Yorkshire at this time, and that there the justices found it very difficult to administer the law, but did execute it to a considerable extent. In Devonshire also the justices received a letter from the Lord Lieutenant, urging them to take especial care for the relief of those in want, and they too began to take measures for carrying out the law. They revoked the licenses granted for beggars, put in order the Houses of Correction and authorised a system of organised billeting on the rich. The poor were to be relieved with two meals a day, one to every household or two or more according to the ability of the householder. If there was any default the justices might assess any sum up to eighteenpence weekly "for every pole[577]." Moreover the justices were to raise stocks for setting the poor to work. All this points to a great increase in vigilance after the Order in Council of 1597 and it also points to the fact that the administration was recent. A general system of billeting was seldom adopted when the legal relief of the poor had been long put in practice. Moreover Devonshire and Yorkshire in later times were backward in administering the law, so that the improvement was probably at least as great in other counties.