The existing provision for temporary relief was in fact wholly inadequate. In the metropolis, for example, there was a crying need. It was stated by Henry VII in 1509 that:— “there be fewe or noon such commune Hospitalls within this our Reame, and that for lack of them, infinite nombre of pouer nedie people miserably dailly die, no man putting hande of helpe or remedie.” The king, recognizing the need, planned to convert the old Savoy Palace into a magnificent institution (Pl. XIV) in which “to lodge nightly one hundred poor folks.” If this charity corresponded with the recent Statute, it would relieve those vagrants who alone were exempt, namely, women in travail and persons in extreme sickness. The king contemplated building institutions similar to the Savoy in York and Coventry, but the design was not carried out. The problems arising from true poverty and false mendicancy were, of course, intimately connected with hospital life. A graphic picture of the difficulties which beset administrators of charity about the year 1536 is given by Robert Copland in _The hye way to the Spyttell hous_. The author states that one wintry day, he took refuge from the snow-storm in the porch of a hospital, probably St. Bartholomew’s. Here he got deep into conversation with the porter of the house. While they talked, there gathered at the gate people of very poor estate,—lame, blind, [p013] barefoot—and Copland, who does not despise the honest poor, only those who live in need and idleness, inquires whether they admit all who ask for lodging. The porter at first answers, “Forsooth, yes,” and Copland goes on to protest against indiscriminate hospitality:— “Me thynk that therin ye do no ryght Nor all suche places of hospytalyte To confort people of suche iniquyte. But syr I pray you, of your goodnes and fauour Tell me which ye leaue, and which ye do socour.” The porter replies that the house is no supporter of sham beggars. There are some who counterfeit leprosy, and others who put soap in their mouth to make it foam, and fall down as if they had “Saynt Cornelys euyll.” He goes on to describe those who hang about by day and sleep at night at St. Bartholomew’s church door—drunkards, spendthrifts, swearers and blasphemers, those who wear soldiers’ clothing, but are vagabonds, and men who pretend to have been shipwrecked. Many of these live by open beggary, with bag, dish and staff:— “And euer haunteth among such ryf raf One tyme to this spyttell, another to that.”