With regard to the relief of the poor as a whole, it seems clear that the law was not equally well administered at all places or in all times. The places in which the administration of the law was least satisfactory were those farthest from the seat of government. They are indicated in some cases by the absence of justices' reports; in others by the character of the reports, or by the distinct statement of the statute of 1662. From Northumberland and Cumberland and some of the counties of Wales we have no justices' reports on the poor law, and we have little evidence from other sources as to any effective enforcement of the law. From Westmoreland and Lancashire we have very few reports until 1637 and 1638, and these seem to indicate that the system of poor relief was then only recently introduced[574]. From Wiltshire, Devonshire and Cornwall we have a few reports, but they indicate a comparatively careless administration. There are few or no cases of setting the poor to work, and in Wiltshire it was difficult to find masters for the apprentices. But except in Northumberland and Cumberland some kind of legal poor relief was administered in all these counties, although it seems to have been less well administered than in other parts of the country. The statute of 1662 tells us that at the time of its enactment parts of Wales, the counties forming the Bishopric of Durham and the county of Yorkshire derived little benefit from the statute of Elizabeth[575], and except Yorkshire, these counties are precisely those from which we have few or no reports. [574] See _supra_, p. 214. [575] 14 Chas. II., c. 12. But in the South-east and Midland parts of England and the rest of the Western shires the case was different. During some part of our period the system seems to have been on the whole fairly well organised. [Sidenote: 3. The administration of the Poor Law in the rest of England depended upon the action of the Privy Council.] But this was not equally the case at all times. It was the case only when the justices were vigilant, and they seem to have been made vigilant mainly by the frequent letters and orders of the Privy Council. It is this action of the Privy Council that seems to make the administration of this period different from that of the sixteenth century, though it was the existence of the justices that caused this action to be so effectual. But the letters and orders of the Privy Council were not always equally frequent even during the period from 1597 to 1644.