As the main part of our evidence depends on the justices' reports we must determine whether the methods described in these returns are typical of those employed all over the country or whether we have reports only from the more energetic justices. Now we hear of some instances of finding work for the unemployed from other sources[398]. If we possessed all the most favourable cases in our reports all or most of these instances would be found amongst them. But this is not the fact; some are reported and some are not. It is clear then energetic administration of the law existed which was not mentioned in the reports now preserved amongst the State Papers. We may therefore conclude that the reports do not come only from vigorous administrators but are fairly typical of the whole country. [398] See note Chapter XII. for cases of employing the poor in counties and towns where no justices' reports definitely report anything of the kind. The minutes of the meetings at Alton and the report of the justices of Cambridge give us a good idea of the effect of the Orders and Directions on the justices. In the first place they show us that a number of meetings were held in consequence of the Book of Orders. In some cases these meetings seem to have taken place every month throughout the period from 1631 to 1639[399]; but from a report of Lord Fairfax it appears that special inquiries into the requirements of the Book of Orders were made only once a year in his part of Yorkshire[400]. The meetings, even if they were only infrequent, must have had a considerable influence in improving the execution of the poor laws. [399] _e.g._ Appendix XII. H. [400] _D. S. P._, Chas. I., Vol. 293, No. 129. Report from Ryedale, July 1635. On these occasions a number of offences were punished. Some were connected with the relief of the poor because the fines exacted were used for that purpose. Among these were such faults as playing at unlawful games, getting drunk, swearing, the "profanacon of the Saboth," and not going to church[401]. Other cases related to breaches of the vagrancy laws and of that part of the poor law which placed upon the overseers the duty of seeing that all who had not any means were set to work[402]. [401] All these are mentioned in the above-mentioned reports from Alton and Cambridge. The fines for not going to church were often regularly exacted. In one report we are told that some of the accused were too poor to pay and that others had compounded for recusancy, Vol. 300, No. 17. [402] See Chapter VIII. See above, Alton and Cambridge. See also Appendix XII. B. Westmill.