"Towards the close of the fifteenth century, the impetus was given commerce and the woollen trade made a sudden advance, and such an enormous one that cornfields were changed into pasture lands, 'whereby the inhabitants of the said town (Manchester) have gotten and come into riches and wealthy livings' so that in 1553, forty thousand pieces of cloth were exported in English ships. It was already the England which we see to-day a land of meadows, green, intersected by hedgerows, crowded with cattle, abounding in ships, a manufacturing, opulent land, with a people of beef-eating toilers, who enrich it while they enrich themselves. They improved agriculture to such an extent, that in half a century the produce of an acre was doubled."] Sir Hugh Clopton's many benefactions illustrate very thoroughly the feeling of many of those who had made money at this time, that they were stewards of their wealth for the benefit of the community. Civic philanthropy is sometimes supposed to be a much more modern idea than this century, and what was given for charity is sometimes thought to have been but poorly directed. As a matter of fact, wealthy men were {178} at least as thoughtful of their benefactions in that time as in our own. If Sir Hugh Clopton's varied works for his towns-people are to be considered as typical, and everything points to such a conclusion, they were even more likely to do enduring good. He did not specialize, but where he found a good work to do he did it. Indeed, the whole story of doing good for others in this time deserves the study of the modern time, because of its solution of many problems that we are facing now. An interesting phase of their collections for charity was the continuance of the old custom which had existed for several centuries, of having a special day on which everyone who was approached by certain solicitors for charity was expected to give something. This was usually the day after Whit-Sunday. Sometimes in the English villages, at the entrance to a bridge, or across a market place or the main street of the town, a rope was stretched and everyone who passed had to pay a toll for charity. Our modern "tag day" was a revival of this custom, though in the mediaeval towns, where everybody knew everybody else, there were less social dangers in the custom.