The claims upon the Parish Overseer were constant and of the most varied character. Were Joe Thompson's children ailing? Then the Overseer sent in the parish doctor to bleed the poor little mites, though they might ill spare the vital fluid, and the cost of the process to the parish, when a quantity were operated upon, was 6d. apiece, as appears by the Therfield parish accounts, though individual cases of "letting blood" were usually charged a shilling each.--Was "Nat Simmons' gal" short of a petticoat? Then, the Overseer provided the needed article.--Had widow Jones broken her spinning wheel or her patten ring? Then the cooper and the blacksmith were called in by the Overseer to repair the mischief.--Was "Old Nib"--they had a curious habit of calling nicknames in the parish books of last century!--was "Old Nib" short of capital for carrying on his business of buying doctors' bottles? If so, a small instalment was forthcoming from the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Had even the respectable journeyman carpenter cut his finger? Then he too got a grant upon signing a promissory note. In this way the casual disbursements of the Overseer amounted to a considerable sum, and covered the greatest variety of claims for help--from paying a person's rent, or taking clothes out of pawn, to mending leather breeches or supplying cabbage plants for the paupers' gardens! The comparative isolation of the rural folk was aggravated by the old laws of settlement. To nine men and women out of ten, and to ninety-nine children out of a hundred, the world was bounded almost by the parish, and the parish a man belonged to was an important consideration in those days. Indeed, Sir Mordaunt Martin, a kind of Canon Blackley of the last century, proposed a scheme for fining a farmer a half-penny a day for every man he employed not belonging to {43} the parish! also that all males above 18 in default of paying 2d., and females 3/4d. or 1d. a week for a rainy day, should be committed to prison. Then, a man could not leave his parish and go to live, or even lodge while at work, in another parish without a licence; that is to say a certificate setting forth the parish to which he legally belonged. If he did he was liable to be taken before a magistrate by the Overseers and Churchwardens, and if a man "intruded" (that is the word used in the old informations) in this way into a parish not his own, he was liable to be taken back again, not because he was a pauper, but simply on the ground that he was "likely to become chargeable." Not half a bad way of keeping out objectionable characters!