The question of what to do with the wandering beggars appears to have met with a rough-and-ready answer from the Liverpool authorities, and in 1686 they sent round the bellman to warn the inhabitants not to relieve any foreign poor, and, to prevent any mistake, they ordered that all those on the relief list should wear a pewter badge; and so strictly were these regulations enforced, that a burgess was fined 6s. 8d. for harbouring his own father and mother without giving due notice to the officials. The first regular post-stages between the various parts of Lancashire and the rest of England were slow in developing, as we may infer from the fact that in 1653 three merchants (two Londoners and a Cornishman) made a proposal to the Government to work the inland and foreign letter office, and to establish a stage between Lancaster and Carlisle. This arrangement was probably not carried out. The roads all over the county were at this period in a dreadful state, and were not materially improved until the establishment of the turnpike system. The educational advantages had now somewhat improved, the increase in public schools towards the close of the century being considerable. The experience of one boy will serve as a sample of how, no doubt, fared others. William Stout, the son of a well-to-do farmer, who lived at Bolton Holmes, near Lancaster (where his ancestors had lived for generations), records[159] that he was first sent to a dame school, and afterwards to the Free School at Bolton (about the year 1674), but when he was between ten and twelve years of age he was, especially in the spring and summer season, taken away for the "plough time, turf time, hay time and harvest, in looking after the sheep, helping at plough, going to the moss with carts, making hay and shearing in harvest;" so that he made small progress in Latin, and what he learnt in winter he forgot in summer; as for writing, he depended upon a writing-master who came to Bolton during the winter.[160] One of the earliest recollections of the writer just quoted was of his sister being sent up to London to be touched by Charles II., on which occasion she received a gold token worth about 10s., which she afterwards wore round her neck, "as the custom then was." The royal touch was not in this case efficacious. William Stout afterwards settled in Lancaster as a kind of general dealer and merchant, especially in groceries and ironmongery, and from his diary may be gleaned several interesting details of the state and trade of Lancaster, which at that time (end of seventeenth century) did a considerable shipping business to London, Ireland, Virginia, Barbadoes, and other ports.