The Book of Orders issued in each period of scarcity contained directions for limiting the quantity of malt and for suppressing unnecessary alehouses. This was the case because barley bread was the chief food of the poor, and they would be more easily able to obtain a supply if the barley which would have been used for malt was brought to the markets. The corn reports of 1623 and 1630-1 for the most part state in general terms that these directions had been carried out[422]. Moreover sometimes the justices enter into details and show that they had taken great care in putting this part of the Council's orders into execution. Thus in 1623 the number of alehouses in Banbury was reduced by one-third, in Ripon by a half, while in Wycombe only nine were licensed out of twenty-one[423]. In April 1631 also in Bradford, in Hertford, and in Stafford more than half the alehouses were suppressed[424]. [422] See reports from Newbury, six hundreds of Norfolk, Taunton, nine hundreds of Somerset, Wentllooge in Monmouthshire, Bridgewater, the soke of Peterborough and the wildish parts of Pevensey, all returned between May 21st and May 31st, 1631. [423] _Cal. of State Papers._ Ripon, Feb. 25, 1623, Banbury, Mar. 1st, Wycombe, Mar. 12. [424] _Dom. State Papers_, Chas. I., Vol. 189, Stafford, No. 1, I., Bradford and Haworth, No. 8, V., Hertford, Vol. 189, No. 79. Similar details show us that the making of malt was carefully regulated. In 1623 the justices of South Hampshire fixed the total quantity of barley that might be used for this purpose in the county and allotted a definite quantity to each division: a hundred quarters were allotted to each of the divisions of Andover and Fawley, eighty quarters to that of Alton, and in proportion to the other divisions[425]. At other times malting was suppressed altogether, as in three hundreds of Herefordshire in 1623[426] and at Taunton in 1631[427]. [425] _Dom. State Papers_, Jac. I., Vol. 138, No. 14. [426] _Ib._, Vol. 140, 25. The three hundreds were those of Stretford, Grimsworth, and Wigmore. [427] _Ib._, Chas. I., Vol. 192, No. 34. Occasionally malting was continued by some of the maltsters, but in order to counterbalance the injury to the poor they contributed in some special way to their support. Thus at Warwick in 1623 the maltsters brought corn to market and sold at a shilling a bushel under the market price to the poorer people, while at Stafford in 1631 the maltsters who had continued their trade in the town agreed to contribute a specified sum to the support of the poor in several of the surrounding country districts[428]. At Norwich some of the maltsters were disobedient, and they were there ordered as a punishment to bring corn to the public granary and sell it at low rates to the poor[429]. It is thus clear that this regulation of the consumption of ale was made in the interests of the poor, and that it was carefully executed in 1623 and 1631.