In the meantime steps had been taken towards raising a fund from the inhabitants of the wards to enable the municipal authorities to find work for the poor.(993) On the 2nd April the President and Governors for the Poor of the city reported to the Common Council that they stood in need of £12,000 at the least, in order to start the poor on work. The court thought best to begin by raising only £4,000, and there was some talk of applying to parliament to increase (if need be) the powers of the Corporation for the Poor, so as to charge both real and personal estate in assessments.(994) A year ago (6 June, 1649) parliament had assisted the City with the sum of £1,000 towards the relief of the poor, and had consented to convey to the municipal authorities a certain storehouse in the Minories, as well as the wardrobe near the Blackfriars, the latter to be used as a work-house.(995) The City now took the opportunity of thanking the Commons for these gifts as well as for the gift of Richmond Park, and promised to stand by them "against all wicked practices and opposite pretended powers whatsoever."(996) (M512) There was another matter of municipal interest which claimed the attention of the civic authorities about this time. Ever since 1550, when, as we have seen, the borough of Southwark first became completely subject to the jurisdiction of the city, the inhabitants of the borough had suffered from the anomalous position of being ruled by an alderman not of their choosing, and by a Common Council to which they sent no representatives. Nevertheless, it was not until the close of 1649 that they began to raise any serious objection to the existing state of things. On the 4th December of that year they petitioned parliament that they might be incorporated or enfranchised either with or without the City, on the ground that, as matters stood, their poor were neglected and they suffered from "diversity of jurisdictions," under which they were subjected to "double service and charges," such as no other body suffered throughout the kingdom.(997) (M513)