The first commission upon the Poor Laws took place in William IV.’s reign, and since then reform has gradually been at work. In many places public charity is still abused; but no real good can be effected at once, and every effort must be proved by long and fair trial, under which all unsuitable experiments will fail, and only the practical and beneficial ones will survive the test. Of course, relief and outdoor assistance were left very much to the discretion and honesty of the overseer, whose accounts were yearly scrutinized at the Easter vestry, when the parochial accounts were discussed. Sometimes these discussions were considered of sufficient importance to be entered in the parish books. Questions as to the ownership and distribution of pews in the church, repairs to the edifice, by whom they were to be done, boundaries, and whose business it was to keep in order certain roads lying between rival parishes--all such matters came forward for consideration, and, finally, the officers for the ensuing year were elected, and the books handed over to the new churchwardens. Perhaps a further check upon miscellaneous entries being made in the books was that all the accounts had ‘to be passed’ at the nearest Sessions and signed by the presiding magistrate, who was some neighbouring squire. The parish constable is now replaced by the policeman supplied by the county, as visible representative of the law in rural places. One entry often found among the old accounts was of repairs done to the village stocks, frequently used to punish petty offences, especially drunkenness. The pound, too, often needed mending; fines for allowing animals to stray and become empounded are among the most frequent entries in old manor court rolls. In many places a hayward was a regularly appointed officer for this purpose, whose duty it was to capture the animals and attend to them until they were reclaimed by their owner or sold to defray expenses. In Berkshire the hayward, or pinder, gave a tally to the person who brought the beast found on his land, and he did not deliver the beast until its owner produced the tally, proving that compensation for damage had been properly paid, as well as expenses for keep during its detention. The offices of overseer of the poor and of road surveyor, the latter called waywarden, are not of any great antiquity; nor are they of consequence so far as regards the old account books, in which their elections are often not even mentioned. As to the constable, we only get a casual glimpse of his duties when we read a list of his expenses incurred in conveying some delinquent parishioner to the county gaol, or of journeys taken to distant places to enquire into the antecedents of paupers, or in taking them back to their own villages.