第367页 / 共2651页

When, by the destruction of monasteries, the poor had been

deprived of the charity of those religious houses, after some

other ineffectual attempts for their relief, it was enacted, by

the 43d of Elizabeth, c. 2. that every parish should be bound to

provide for its own poor, and that overseers of the poor should

be annually appointed, who, with the church-wardens, should

raise, by a parish rate, competent sums for this purpose.