[Sidenote: 2. Work of justices in first putting the law in execution.] [Sidenote: (_a_) In the West Riding in 1598.] The orders of the West Riding Sessions Rolls during 1598[377] give us some idea of the difficulties of the justices in putting the system into execution. The statute of 1597-8 was apparently the first regulation of the kind generally administered in the West Riding, but efforts were made to enforce this as soon as it came into operation[378]. In June 1598 elaborate orders were drawn up for the division of Knaresborough, which show us that the new methods met with considerable opposition. The churchwardens and overseers presented the names of the poor, but they said that all the parishes objected to pay money. The inhabitants preferred to give "releefe" to beggars, and some, they said, could help in this way who could not afford to pay rates. The justices allowed the parishioners to have their own way to some extent. They stipulated, however, that the poor should ask relief of their fellow parishioners only, and that those who were able to work should be set to work. Moreover, the occupiers who lived out of the parish and the inhabitants who refused to give sufficiently were to be assessed[379]. It was not only in Knaresborough that poor rates were unpopular. Seven inhabitants of Tickhill refused to give the sum assessed on them[380], while in Bentley and Arkesey an assessment was duly made, but the money was not paid until the goods of many of the inhabitants had been distrained[381]. [377] The _West Riding Sessions Rolls_ have been printed from 10th Jan. 1597-8 to the 1st July, 1602, inclusive. The Roll for the year 1598 contains the orders made at the Sessions as well as the panels and indictments, _West Riding Sessions Rolls_, Vol. III., Yorkshire Archæological Association. [378] April, 1598. "Ordered that the churchwardens and surveiors of the poore within the parishe of Braiton shall see and take order that Elizabethe Corker and her iiij^{or} children shalbe releeved and provided for as the late statute requireth etc." _West Riding Sessions Rolls_, p. 76. [379] _West Riding Sessions Rolls_, pp. 84-86, June, 1598. [380] _Ib._ p. 94. [381] _Ib._ p. 97. The churchwardens and overseers of Wakefield in some way failed to comply with the statute, although according to Arth's pamphlet the poor there were sufficiently relieved. _Ib._ p. 118. See Chap. VIII. _supra_. This enforcement of local responsibility at first increased rather than lessened the hardships endured by many of the poor. We are told that "divers personnes are nowe sent forth of all partes of this realme to the places of their births; wherof some of those personnes so sent have bene inhabitinge and dwellinge in those places and townes from whence they are sent by the space of twentie yeares, some more, some lesse."