We have seen that the 12th Rich. II. required the impotent poor to remain for life where they were found at the proclamation of the act, or at the places of their birth. The subsequent statutes require them to proceed either to their places of birth, or last places of residence, for three years. The law assumed, as we have already remarked, that they would be supported there by voluntary alms; and as respects the able-bodied, it assumed that an able-bodied slave, for such the laborer given up to the local authorities was, could always be made worth his maintenance; that maintenance being, of course, the lowest that could keep him in working order. It appears, however, that casual alms were found an insufficient, or an inconvenient provision for the impotent; that the local authorities were not sufficiently severe taskmasters of the able-bodied; and that the keeping them at work required some fund, by way of capital. The 27th Hen. VIII. cap. 25, (1536,) therefore, requires the parishes to which the able-bodied should be sent, "to keep them to continual labor in such wise that they may get their own living by the continual labor of their own hands;" on pain that every parish making default shall forfeit twenty shillings a-month. It directs the churchwardens, and two others of every parish, to collect alms and broken meat, to be employed in supporting the impotent poor, and "setting and keeping to work the sturdy vagabonds;" and forbids other almsgiving, on pain of forfeiting ten times the amount. This is the first attempt at making charity legal and systematic; and it was obviously a part of the scheme for confining the laboring population to their own parishes. It seems to have been supposed that voluntary alms, systematically distributed, would provide wholly for the impotent, and form a fund which, aided by the fruits of their forced labor, would support the "sturdy vagabonds;" and, therefore, that no one could have an excuse for changing his residence.