the citizens whom Latimer and Lever blamed for neglect. Moreover some of the spoils of the dissolution fell into the hands of the municipal rulers, and sometimes they were charged with administering them for the use of the poor. This would certainly facilitate their action and would perhaps lead them to consider the relief of the poor especially as a municipal duty. Something of the kind seems to have happened at York, and possibly also at Cambridge. In any case it is certain that, after 1536, the citizens of London set themselves much more vigorously to work to deal with the poor; that the royal hospitals were founded partly from the dissolved monasteries, and that the foundation of these hospitals first led to the compulsory taxation of 1547 for the poor in London, and called into existence the governors for the poor. Municipal care for the poor therefore existed before the dissolution of the monasteries, but became much more extensive afterwards, both because the need was greater and because the rival authority was suppressed. [Sidenote: 4. Relation of beggary to first schemes of relief.] The close relation between beggars and the new system of poor relief is also apparent. The first efforts of Town Councils and Parliament were occasioned by the great increase in the number of begging poor; the earliest orders concern the punishment of able-bodied beggars; the others were left to voluntary charity. But the able-bodied beggars were sometimes unable to obtain work and the impotent beggars were sometimes unrelieved. The system of the royal hospitals of the City of London was founded by the City rulers to meet these difficulties. They considered especially three kinds of beggars; children, sturdy beggars, and the impotent poor; they built or refounded all the hospitals in order to provide for one or other of these classes. Occasionally begging was forbidden altogether, but as a rule beggars were not altogether banished, but some of them were provided for in hospitals or by pensions, and the rest were licensed. As soon as the system was established, even as early as 1557, the distinction between beggars and other poor was clearly seen and recognised, but still, it is true, that the organisation first grew up in order to lessen the number of vagabonds, and chiefly concerned beggars. [Sidenote: 5. Parental government.]