To each of these districts a military officer was assigned, and largely endowed with inquisitorial and penal powers. Though holding for the most part no higher army rank than that of colonel or major, these functionaries (who were appointed by Cromwell himself, and who remained under his personal supervision) were styled Major-Generals,[126] and under this title exercised an office which for the moment overawed the constitutional ministers of the peace. At first it was not intended that the ordinary magistrates should be superseded, for the Major-Generals were instructed to co-operate with "the other Justices of the Peace," and if in practice this co-operation degenerated into flat coercion, such a result must be attributed to the exigencies of the occasion, or to the misinterpretation of their orders by the Protector's agents, rather than to the deliberate design of Cromwell himself. The programme in front of the military reformers was a sufficiently extensive one, comprising, as it did, measures "for the security of the peace of the nation, the suppressing of vice, and the encouragement of virtue."[127] To enable them to grapple with their herculean task, they were assisted by a special force of militia, 6420 strong, all but two hundred of whom were mounted, and the expense of the new administration was met by the imposition of a tax of ten per cent. on the estates of Royalists, on the old English principle that those responsible for disturbances should pay for the re-establishment of order. As was only to be expected, political considerations suggested many of the police regulations now enforced--travellers from foreign parts were not free to remain on English soil till they had communicated to the Major-General of the district, their names, their destination, and their business, nor were they allowed to move from shire to shire without previously advising the Justices; whilst ex-cavaliers and other persons of known royalist sympathies were bound to notify every change of address to the soldier-magistrates, who were also empowered to disarm rebels and to distribute the confiscated weapons amongst supporters of the parliamentary cause. For the guidance of the Major-Generals a document was circulated, containing twenty-one headings, under which was set out a scheme for the better government of the people--horse-racing, cock-fighting, and bear-baiting were forbidden, drunkenness, blasphemy and sabbath-breaking were to be severely punished, and alehouses, not absolutely necessary for the refreshment of travellers, were to be suppressed.[128] The vigour with which this crusade against popular sports was pushed is well illustrated by the activity displayed by Colonel Barkstead, who with his own hand killed all the bears in Westminster, and ordered his men to wring the neck of every game-cock that they could find.