Bridewell was the greatest innovation and the most characteristic institution of the new system. The organisation for the relief of the poor had been called into existence because the crowds of vagrants were a chronic nuisance and danger to society. Bridewell dealt with the most difficult class of these vagrants and gave some of them a chance of training and reform. Moreover, Bridewell as a place of punishment for idlers was the necessary counterpart of the new schemes for universal relief. You could not relieve and find work for every one unless you had some means for coercing and punishing the "sturdy vagabond." Christ's Hospital, like Bridewell, is a new institution, but, unlike Bridewell, it does not altogether strike out a new line. Still, as soon as the relief of the poor becomes a public duty, institutions for the training of the young become increasingly popular, and we shall find that, during the next century, there are other Christ's Hospitals as well as other Bridewells in most of the great towns of the kingdom. [Sidenote: 6. Failure of the municipal system in London.] This municipal system however was not successful in London. So far as London was concerned the organisation seemed fairly complete. But even from the local point of view the system was weak in one point. Funds had to be provided. It was not easy suddenly to raise the money necessary for the new organisation; men were not accustomed to be taxed for the poor, and, as soon as the first enthusiasm had subsided, a sufficient sum could not be collected. During the succeeding period we shall find that the rulers of London found great difficulty in this matter, and that this was one of the causes of the want of success of the municipal system of London. But another difficulty was inherent in the system in the very fact that it was municipal, and not national. A few years ago the distribution of the Mansion House Relief Fund caused a considerable immigration from the country. Exactly the same result arose from the first organisation of the poor in the City of London. In March, 1568/9, we are told that "forasmuch as experience late hath shewed that the charitable relief gyuen as well by the quenes ma^{ties} most noble progenitors as also the charitable almes from tyme to tyme collected within this citie and bestowed by the cittizens, aswell upon the poore and nedy citizens, being sicke, impotent and lambe as the poore orphans and fatherless children ... aswell in Chryste Church and Bridwell as in other hospitalles founded for the reliefe of the poore within the said citie, hath drawen into this citie great nombers of vagabondes, roges, masterless men and Idle persons as also poore, lame and sick persons dwellyng in the most partes of the realme[76]." The very measures which were taken to cope with poverty in London thus increased the crowd of beggars, not because they caused more people to become beggars, but because they attracted the poor from all parts. The