The work accomplished with regard to the poor by Parliament was unimportant during the period from 1597 to 1644 but some slight changes were made in the law. It was in 1601 that the statute on which our system of poor relief has since rested was passed in its final form. This law, known as the 43 Eliz. c. 2, is often regarded as inaugurating new methods of dealing with the poor, but as a matter of fact few important legal enactments have initiated fewer innovations. It is simply a re-enactment with very slight alterations of the statute of 1597-8. The clause of the statute of 1597 which declared all beggars to be rogues if they asked for anything more than food was omitted in 1601, while the liability of parents to support their children, imposed in 1597, was in 1601 extended to grandparents also. Otherwise the slight differences between the two Acts consist chiefly of modifications of detail, designed to render certain doubtful points of law[302]. This statute of 1601 was itself only passed as a temporary measure but it was continued by the Parliaments both of James I. and of Charles I. It remained by far the most important regulation concerning the relief of the poor until the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834[303], and is in force as the basis of our system of Poor Relief at the present day. [302] Other differences between the two Acts were as follows: 1597-8. (1) Four Overseers were to be nominated yearly in Easter week. (2) Every inhabitant or occupier of lands in the parish was to be assessed. (3) People refusing to work were to be sent to the House of Correction. (4) A girl might be apprenticed until 21. (5) In 1597-8 the Mayors or Head Officers of Corporate Towns being justices of the peace had the same authority within their towns as justices of the peace in the country. (6) If a parish be in two counties or partly in a county and partly in a borough the justices or head officers of the towns were to "deal and intermeddle" only within their own "Liberty." 1601. (1) Four, three or two Overseers were to be nominated according to the size of the parish in Easter week or within a month after Easter. (2) In 1601, the liability of the parish, vicar, owner of tithes impropriate and of saleable underwoods and of the occupiers of houses is specially mentioned. (3) In 1601 they might be sent to the House of Correction or gaol, probably because there was not yet everywhere a House of Correction. (4) If she married she was released at the time of her marriage. (5) In 1601, these powers were extended and the Town officials had not only the same authority as the justices out of their sessions and at their sessions, but the same power as was appointed "to any two or more of them or to the justices of the peace in their Quarter Sessions." Every Alderman of the City of London in his Ward had the same power as one or two justices in the county.