But whilst Alms of the Chest, though pretty various in its application,[27] was intended only for the poor of the place in which it was collected, Alms of the Basket was, to the extent of its capabilities, for ‘the poor of the whole world.’ It consisted of a daily house-to-house collection of food of all sorts, and occasionally of money, which was again, day by day, distributed. This custom of _tamchui_, suited to those primitive times, would seem to be very similar to the practice of ‘common Boxes, and common gatherynges in every City,’ which prevailed in England in the sixteenth century, and which received legal sanction in Act of the 23rd of Henry VIII.--‘Item, that 2 or 3 tymes in every weke 2 or 3 of every parysh shal appoynt certaine of ye said pore people to collecte and gather broken meates and fragments, and the refuse drynke of every householder, which shal be distributed evenly amonge the pore people as they by theyre discrecyons shal thynke good.’ Only the collectors and distributors of _kupah_ and _tamchui_ were not ‘certaine of ye said pore people,’ but unpaid men of high character, holding something of the position of magistrates in the community. The duty of contributing in kind to _tamchui_ was supplemented among the richer folks by a habit of entertaining the poor as guests;[28] seats at their own tables, and beds in their houses being frequently reserved for wayfarers, at least over Sabbath and festivals.[29] The curious union of sense and sentiment in the Talmudic code is shown again in the regulations as to who may, and who may not, receive of these gifts of the poor: ‘_He who has sufficient for two meals_,’ so runs the law, ‘_may not take from tamchui; he who has sufficient for fourteen may not take from kupah_.’ Yet might holders of property, fallen on slack seasons, be saved from selling at a loss and helped to hold on till better times, by being ‘meanwhile supported out of the tithes of the poor.’ And if the house and goods of him in this temporary need were grand, money help might be given to the applicant, and he might keep all his smart personal belongings, yet superfluities, an odd item or two of which are vouchsafed, must be sold, and replaced, if at all, by a simpler sort. Still, with all this excessive care for those who have come down in the world, and despite the dictum that ‘he who withholdeth alms is “impious” and like unto an idolater,’ there is yet no encouragement to dependence discernible in these precise and prolix rules. ‘Let thy Sabbath be as an ordinary day, rather than become dependent on thy fellow-men,’ it is clearly written, and told, too, in detail, how ‘wise men,’ the most honoured, by the way, in the community, to avoid ‘dependence on others,’ might become, without loss of caste or respectability, ‘carriers of timber, workers in metal, and makers of charcoal.’ Neither is there any contempt for wealth or any love of poverty for its own sake to be seen in this people, who were taught to