In Marlborough also there was certainly a workhouse, for a petition was presented to the Privy Council in the name of the Mayor and burgesses concerning John Thorner, an Attorney-at-Law, who "was rated among others to pay 52/- towards the erecting of a workhouse and raising of a stock for the employment of the poore that are able and willing to worke to be paid at three general payments whereof one is already passed at our Lady day last." Thorner had refused to pay his rate, "saying that it was against the law," and had encouraged others not to pay, so "that manie of the inhabitants there made refusall also to pay their proportion." The Privy Council referred the matters to the judges, and in the mean time the rate was to be paid. _Privy Council Register_, 13th May, 1631. But with regard to the rest of England this is not the case. In every county except Northampton some justices state that they have found employment for the poor. As we might expect this was done most frequently in the towns and in the manufacturing counties, both because in these places there were more rich people and because there were also more unemployed owing to the greater fluctuations of trade. [Sidenote: 9 _b_. Provision of work more necessary in the towns than in the country.] A report from Reading and Theale illustrates this: "Wee finde that the able poore in boddy to worke and w^{ch} are in country villages and hambletts haue theire ymploymt in husbondrie and by that meanes are mayntayned; other lyen in such countrie townes, populer, incorporate, where heretofore multitudes of such able persons haue lived by worke from the clothier, now through the defect and decaye of that trade and soe consequently of the clothier, thousands of these poore formerlie relieved by worke liue in much want and could hardlie subsist this deere yeare did not many extend theire charity even beyond their meanes[621]." Newbury and Abingdon were also towns in the same neighbourhood subject to similar conditions, and we know already that workhouses were founded in both these places and in Reading itself also[622]. Shrewsbury and Hereford are fair examples of more westernly towns. At Shrewsbury the justices report in June 1631 that they "are aboute a course to sett all the poore on worke within our Towne and Libertyes[623]," and in 1638 an order was made for regulating a workhouse there[624]. About the same time the Mayor of Hereford records that "there is a colleccon made in euerie severall parish w^{th}in the said Cyttie, and competent somes raysed for to releive the impotent and needy, and a stocke for the setting of poore able people to worke and for the placeing of youth apprentices[625]." Other magistrates report in like manner: thus in the rape of Hastings they have caused the officers "as much as in them lyeth to see the said poore inhabitants bee duely kept to worke and haue fitting materialls provided for them[626]." In the hundred of Hertford the justices state