This letter thus confirms the inference we should draw from the state of Oxfordshire, Norfolk, and Durham that on the whole the organisation for the relief of the poor was still insufficient. The public opinion of the time seems to recognise that there was a close connection between the bands of vagrants and the recent enclosures. Men like Lord Norris, the Dean of Durham, and Francis Bacon saw that if the agricultural changes were ultimately good for everyone, in the meantime they were bad for the poor; it was clear that many people had been without sufficient food, and the many insurrections of the time showed that this condition of things was dangerous to the peace of the country. The distress of these years thus brought vividly before men of the time the evils and the danger of the existing economic condition of the very poor, and the resulting awakening of public opinion was probably the chief factor in the creation of the better legislation and more efficient administration of later years. A pamphlet written in 1597 by Henry Arth gives us considerable insight as to the contemporary ideas with regard to the relief of poverty, and also as to the extent to which the law was executed at the time[297]. The writer makes a list of the various classes included under the term "poor"; he uses the word to include those who require either relief or coercion from the public. He mentions both "such as are yong and lustie yet unwilling to labour," and "such as bee overcharged with children having nothing to maintaine them but their hand labour." It is in this sense that the word is most frequently used at the time. Arth goes on to enumerate the causes of poverty, the sins of the poor and the actions of the "poore makers." The poor were accused of idleness, wasting their goods in "bibbing and belly cheare," discontent and "seldome repairing to their parish churches to heare and learne their duties better." The sins of the "poore makers" throw more light on the economic changes of the time. Amongst these are mentioned the "importable oppression of many landlords," the "unconscionable extortion of all usurers," the "unsatiable covetousnesse in cornemongers," "the discharging of seruants and apprentices," and the "want of execution of good lawes and statutes." Magistrates fail to execute the laws, ministers fail to admonish them, and so "the most do live in disorder." But there are exceptions. The "strangers" in London "may be a patterne in these respects to all our English nation," for they keep all their fellow-countrymen from idleness and begging, and find work and wages for their unemployed. If any of them become poor "their state is imparted unto their company, and then commonly they abstaine one meale on the next Lordes day and give the price thereof towardes the parties maintenance." Moreover some well-disposed English people did their duty in the matter. In some districts a man "shall