1672. Correction Houses to be established in thirty burghs. _Ib._, p. 67. Proclamation of 1692. The heritors, ministers and } This regulation was elders were to make the lists of the poor, and the charge } confirmed by the Act for the maintenance was to be borne half by the heritors } of 1698. _Ib._, p. 79 and half by the householders of the parish. } and 84. Still, in spite of these many alterations, the Scotch poor law always resembled that of England in insisting on the duty of each parish to support three classes of people, (1) the aged poor, (2) the lame and blind, &c., and (3) orphans and destitute children. But the able-bodied poor of Scotland, unlike those of England, were not entitled to either work or relief. No legal provision was made for them except in Houses of Correction[680]. [680] _Ib._, p. 61. [Sidenote: 7. Failure of administration in Scotland.] But during the seventeenth century even the relief given to the old and to the young in Scotland was not thoroughly administered. Not only do the frequent enactments of the legislature show that the governing class were not satisfied with the result of the existing laws on the subject, but the fact that the Scotch poor laws were on the whole ineffectual is also indicated by the response made by the justices to the Scotch Privy Council, by the hardships which the poor suffered in the time of dearth at the close of the century, and by the continued existence of beggars, licensed or unlicensed, not only in the seventeenth century but until the beginning of the present reign. [Sidenote: 7 _a_. Responses of the Scotch justices to the Privy Council in 1623 show that they were unable or unwilling to enforce the poor laws themselves, and left it to the kirk sessions.] In Scotland as in England the Privy Council endeavoured to induce the justices to secure a better administration of the poor laws. But the Scotch justices possessed less legal authority than their English colleagues, while they also were less inclined either to obey the Council or to impose taxation. Consequently the efforts of the Scotch Privy Council failed while those of the English Privy Council succeeded. The effect of the Council's interference in Scotland can be seen in the events of the year 1623. This was a time of great hardship. "Mony famileis and tennentis and labouraris of the ground who formarlie wer honnest houshalderis ... ar now turned beggaris thame selffis and of all siort of beggaris thair estate and conditioun is most miserable, becaus thay for the most pairt being eshamed to beg underlyis all the extremiteis quhairwith the pinching of thair belleis may afflict thame[681]." In consequence of this distress the Council issued an order that the destitute poor of each parish should be adequately supported, and that constables should be provided to apprehend and punish vagrants. The expense of both proceedings was to be met by a tax levied upon all the inhabitants of the district.