In addition to the extra work thrown on their shoulders in connection with the Acts above mentioned, the jurisdiction of the Justice of the Peace was extended so as to encroach upon territory that had hitherto been the province of the Justice of Assize. Courts Leet, moreover, having by this time become quite unimportant, the appointment and control of the constabulary was centred almost entirely in the hands of the county magistrates. They held office under the Crown direct, and on their Commission took an oath to do equal right between rich and poor, to accept nothing beyond the customary fees for the performance of their duties, and to pay all fines inflicted by them into the Queen's Exchequer without embezzlement or delay. "The Justices of the Peace," writes Sir Thomas Smith, "be those in whom, at this time, for the repressing of robbers, thieves, and vagabonds, of privy complots and conspiracies, of riots and violences and all other misdemeanours in the commonwealth, the prince putteth his special trust ... and generally, as I have said, for the good government of the shire, the prince putteth his confidence in them."[100] Amongst the duties laid upon the rural police for the control of agriculture, we find that before a labourer "retained in husbandry" could leave his parish or township, he had to obtain a testimonial from the constable, and to get two householders to declare his lawful departure.[101] This system of passports for the suppression of vagrancy never worked smoothly, and its development in later times as enforced against beggars by parish constables, led to serious abuses that will demand our attention further on.[102] The 15th section of the same Act empowered Justices and constables, upon request being made during harvest time, to compel labourers to work on farms where labour was scarce, and to put those who obstinately refused in the stocks for two days and one night. The treatment served out to rogues, vagabonds, and sturdy beggars was more severe. Persons taken begging or "misordering themselves" were to be committed to the common gaol, and if convicted of the offence at the next sessions of the peace or gaol-delivery--"grievously whipped, and burnt through the gristle of the right ear with a hot iron of the compass of an inch about."[103] The burning was repealed, and open whipping "until his or her body be bloody" was afterwards substituted.[104] Although the severity of the punishment was thus mitigated, it was now apparently inflicted in a more summary fashion, for offenders were no longer to be committed to gaol, but were to be whipped on apprehension, probably by the constables at the instance of a Justice.