CHAPTER IV 
THE POOR-RATE SINCE 160I 
In the 1635 edition of Dalton’s Country Justice, a 
work of considerable authority in its day, we find the 
following commentary on the rating provisions of the 
act of 1601 :— 
“In these taxations there must consideration be 
had, first to equality, and then to estates. 
“Equality, that men be equally rated with their 
neighbours, and according to an equal proportion. 
“Estates, that men be rated according to their 
estates of goods known, or according to their [the ?] 
known yearly value of their lands, farms, or occupy- 
ings, and not by estimation, supposition, or report. 
Also herein the charge of family, retinue, and counte- 
nance is in some measure to be regarded; for if one 
valued at £500 in goods hath but himself and his 
wife, and another estimated at £1000 hath wife and 
many children, &c., the first man by reason is to be 
rated as much as the other; and so of lands. Tamen 
queere what the law is in such cases”! 
This opinion that expenses as well as income should 
be taken into account, received some support from 
the Court of King’s Bench as late as 1698, when, 
in the course of hearing a case concerning a rate 
levied in Norwich Cathedral precinct the judges 
1P o4.