The effect of the Book of Orders cannot be lightly estimated if we contrast the statements of Justice Hext and his contemporaries with those of the justices under Charles I. Complaints of great disorder then cease in all parts of the country except London. In many places vagabonds are said to no longer trouble the neighbourhood. In High Peak the justices state "nowe wee haue fewe or noe wanderers[722]"; at Wallington in Surrey few vagabonds are taken because now only a small number come to the hundred[723]; while at Andover there is "scarce a vagrant found about vs nor are any pickeryes com(m)itted[724]." In a few places, as at Bramber[725], the improvement is stated to be owing to the activity of Provost Marshals but in many other places it is directly connected with the Book of Orders. Thus in parts of Westmoreland we hear that there was great improvement in consequence of the enforcement of the poor law in 1638; "idle persons haue beene banished out of the countrey" and the poor of the neighbourhood were "more willing to take paynes[726]." In two divisions of Shropshire it was "rare to see a wandring person[727]," and at Appletree in Derby the overseers relieve the poor and set to work "such as are poore and yett well able to worke w^{ch} wee fynde doeth very much good in the cuntrye[728]." But the most decided symptoms of improvement are indicated by a report from a district of Leicestershire which reveals a state of things in strong contrast to that of Somerset in 1596. The justices record a very careful attention to the Book of Orders, especially the parts relating to setting the poor to work, teaching knitting to the young and placing out apprentices "that yong people and children may receive imployment and fittinge educacon and soe avoide idlenes and lewdenes of life." These efforts they tell us "in all partes of the cou(n)tie hath already wrought soe good effect; as that since the last Assizes to the day of the date hereof there is come into the comon gaole in the cou(n)ty of Leic. but two prisoners for two small felonyes, committed by two seu(er)all yonge people, beinge servants settled at the tyme of the offences committed[729]." [722] _Dom. State Papers_, Chas. I., Vol. 293, No. 115, July, 1635. [723] _Ib._, Vol. 315, No. 25, March 1635/6. [724] _Ib._, Vol. 250, 11, II., Nov. 1633. [725] _Ib._, Vol. 426, 37 and 19, July, 1639. [726] _Dom. State Papers_, Chas. I., Vol. 388, No. 7, April, 1638. [727] Cherbury and Ford, Chas. I., Vol. 272, 53, 54, July, 1634. See above for a like report from Monslow, also where the effect of the enforcement of the Book of Orders was immediate. [728] Vol. 185, 41, Feb. 1630/1. From Morleston and Litchurch, Derbyshire, also the justices say of vagrants "our country is cleerly deliuered of them." Vol. 194, No. 25, June, 1631.