So far the requirements of the law are similar to those of to-day, but some of Dalton's instructions remind us of the difference between the Elizabethan poor law and that of our own time. The poor law was originally part of a paternal system of government: gentlemen were ordered home to their estates, farmers were required to bring their corn to market, cloth manufacturers had to carry on their trade under well-defined regulations, and merchants were obliged to trade in the manner which was thought to conduce most to the good order and to the power of the nation. Workmen also were ordered to work whether they liked it or not, and, if the law were enforced, had to accept the wages fixed by the justices. Dalton therefore goes on to quote another clause of the poor law which has long fallen into disuse. The overseers were to set to work "all such persons (maried or unmaried) as having no meanes to maintaine them, use no ordinary and daily trade of life to get their living by[311]." If they refused the work appointed them they were to go to the House of Correction. Moreover those who refused to work for the wages commonly given and had not "lawfull meanes to live by" were not to be sent to the parish where they were legally settled but were to go to the House of Correction "upon consideration had of both the statutes of the poore and rogues[312]." Already any man between twelve and sixty who had not property and was not a skilled workman might be compelled to serve in husbandry by anyone who wanted a workman[313]. The poor law went a step farther. Not only might an employer require an unemployed workman to work for him but the overseers were obliged to see that he was employed. Occasionally something seems to have been done to put this clause of the statute into execution. Thus in a charge given to the overseers of a division in 1623, these officials were ordered to give the names of those refusing to work to the justices in order that the offenders might be sent to the House of Correction. Moreover they were also commanded "that uppon every Satturday at night or Sunday morninge they fayle not to enquire and take knowledge what labour and work they" (the workmen) "are provided of for the week followinge to the end that if any be unprovided of work they may [therewith] be supplied by the overseers who for that purpose are to enquire for worke for them and to provide materialls for the men that are olde and weake and for the women and children[314]." In other cases we hear of men being punished for "living idly," and maintaining themselves "none knowes howe[315]"; and one of the regular items in the reports returned to the Book of Orders of 1631 concerned the number who lived out of service[316]. The existence of this part of the law and its occasional enforcement reminds us that the poor law once formed part of an economic system entirely different from our own, in which not only paupers, but