[508] _Quarter Sessions from Queen Eliz. to Queen Anne._ A. Hamilton, p. 17. [Sidenote: 2 _b_. Relief of the aged by means of pensions from the parish or by the provisions of houses or free board and lodging.] More often the aged poor were relieved by the funds raised by the parish. Two methods seem to have been adopted. The most usual was what we should now call a system of out-relief. Pensions were granted varying in amount from threepence to two shillings a week, but generally about one shilling[509]. Sometimes in addition rent was paid and often habitations were provided which were built by the overseers on the waste[510]. But the poor in these were not under any special control but were allowed to look after themselves in other respects. In some parishes, however, instead of receiving weekly pensions the poor were billeted on the rich. In a report from the district of Furness and Cartmell, one hundred and seventy-six people were relieved in this manner, and two hundred and eighty-eight by means of pensions. In this case each parish adopted one method or the other exclusively; thus in Alythwaite thirty-nine poor were billeted, in Coniston twelve were provided for by money payments[511]. In other cases the method of billeting existed as an exceptional practice side by side with the pension system. Thus in Staplegrove, Somerset, in 1599, after the list of payments given for the poor, there are the names of two men, each of whom kept a poor impotent person in his house[512]. [509] See Appendix VII., and also the overseers' returns from East Barnet and Elstree in 1639, and from Chipping Barnet and Elstree in Feb. 1636/7. _Dom. State Papers_, Chas. I., Vol. 347, No. 67, and Vol. 418, No. 21. [510] In the North Riding, at Quarter Sessions orders were frequently made for the building of houses for particular poor people. Thus in the Court held April 17th and 18th, 1610, the overseers and churchwardens of Bagby were commanded "to find or provide Alice Cooke, being a poore widowe, of a house." _Quarter Sessions Records, North Riding_, Vol. I. p. 189. On July 20, 1619, also an order was made that the churchwardens and overseers of Startforth shall provide a convenient dwelling house for Ellen Winter before Michaelmas. At the same court the overseers of Easbie were told to collect 82_s._ 10_d._ from various townships in order to pay for a house for two poor men which had been already built by order of the justices. _Ib._ Vol. II. p. 211. Like orders continued to be made through the reign of Charles I. and under the Commonwealth. _Ib._ Vol. V. pp. 62, 255. [511] _Dom. S. P._ Chas. I., Vol. 330, No. 90. [512] See Appendix VII.