The Poor-law expenditure under the old system and the new showed a striking contrast. For the whole country before the new system, and for the last two years under the old, the amount of the poor-rate was L6,913,883, and for the two years immediately afterwards the rate was L4,381,185, showing a reduction of more than one-third of the expenditure. In some cases in the rural districts the figures were much more remarkable, and in one parish in the Buntingford Union the expenditure for the last year under the old system was L800, and the first under the new it was less than L300. It may be that-- Who holds a power But newly gained is ever stern of mood. Even so, there was certainly plenty of room both for reform without hardship, and considerateness with economy. {174} It is mentioned in the Parliamentary returns that in the Royston Union in the winter of 1834, the number of able-bodied men maintained during the winter out of the poor-rate was 361, whereas in the month of December, 1836, after the new system had got into operation, there were only twelve applications for "work or money." All these had orders for the House, which were accepted by seven of them, two of whom stayed in only two days, three only stayed in three days, and two, seven days each. The amounts spent in relief of the poor at earlier periods, in the reign of George III., were as follows:--In 1801 (the year of scarcity), L4,017,871; in 1813, it had risen to L6,656,106; and in each of the years, 1818-20, the figures reached L7,000,000, a figure which was not again reached till 1832. The late Mr. Henry Thurnall, though then but a young man, took an active part in collecting evidence for the Poor-law Commission in this district, and also in reconciling the working men to the new order of things, and he was the author of a pamphlet in the form of an address by a working-man to working-men, addressed to "The Labourers of England," from which it appears that in some places the new Relieving Officer was at first so unpopular that he was pelted when he came into the villages to pay out his relief money! CHAPTER XVI. WHEN THE POLICEMAN CAME.--WHEN THE RAILWAY CAME.--CURIOUS AND MEMORABLE EVENTS. With the abolition of the old Poor-law the Parish Constable, as he was understood in the Georgian era, found a large part of his occupation gone. Those important journeys of Dogberry on the delicate errand of marrying off young couples who promised otherwise to be a trouble to his parish, with all the pleasant suppers, breakfasts, dinners, and beer at inns on the road, of which the reader has been afforded some evidence in the parish accounts of the last century--all this interesting part of the village Dogberry's parochial dignity passed away, and there were even rumours that the constable would no longer be entrusted with the hue-and-cry after criminals into neighbouring parishes. Verily the world was getting turned upside down in these reforming days!