Begins with 1564, though it is clearly not so old as that date, having apparently been copied at a later period, like the other registers before-named. There is much beautiful writing about the middle and close of the seventeenth century, but nothing else noteworthy except that the marriages fell off considerably about that period. In 1691 a charge of 5s. was made by the churchwardens to the clerk for transcribing forty-eight sides of the register. The oldest account book belonging to this parish I have been enabled to procure commences in the year 1678; giving first a catalogue of the parochial charities, in which "poor auncient maides" are specially remembered, and "Mr. Bowen's guift in wascoates to poor maides" is mentioned. Male and female paupers were designated by the terms "Goodman" and "Goodwife" or "Goody," in lieu of their Christian names: "Paid Goodwife Gawler (1684) and her daughter when they went to Malvern to be cured," 3s. Foundlings seem to have been laid at a great many doors in those days, and the cost of feeding and clothing these poor little outcasts formed considerable items, of which the following are samples: 1683.--"Three yards and a half of cloth to make the foundlinge and Crutchington's child two coates, 5s. 10d. "For buttons and thrid and making the two coates, 3s. "Paid Goody Bray for keeping of a child layd at her doore three nights, 6d. "For making of a bond to save ye parish harmless of a childe, 1s. 7d. "Paid ye biddle for going to bring ye woman and child laid down in the parish, 6d." That the elementary education of the youngsters was not forgotten is shown by the great fact, that in 1694 the sum of 1s. 6d. was invested in "1 doz. ABC, 3 hornbooks, and one primer." A child's coffin cost half-a-crown; a man's 5s. Badges or marks for the poor, and sewing them on are regularly charged for. "Ye King's Tax (4s.) for buryall of pore people" is first mentioned in 1695, when the duty was probably first imposed. (See a note on this subject in a subsequent part of this work.) One of the latest instances of touching for the "King's Evil" occurs in 1711, when 11s. were "paid Rogers for carrying of Walker to London to be touched," and even children were taken all the way to town in those days of snail travelling to receive virtue from the royal digits. From hence it would appear that the efficacy of the stroke was not presumed to be promoted by the faith or excitement of the patient (infants being incapable thereof), but purely and solely from the hereditary virtue of the royal touch, _per se_. In 1684 the churchwardens paid 1s. "for ye King's declaracon touching ye evil." More on this subject appears in a note on Superstitions. The following entry refers to the "chimney money" for the poor, already mentioned in St. Swithin's chapter: 1683.--"Spent on the chimney men when the certificates were allowed for the poor people," 3s.