Asstmilation of other Rates 109 
Tudor statutory rates with each other and the poor- 
rate seems to have made itself felt very early. The 
country gentlemen who interrogated the Chief Justice 
in 1633 asked “whether the tax for the county stock, 
jail, and house of correction, is to be made by the 
statute of 14 Eliz, 5, 43 Eliz, 2, by ability, and 
upon the inhabitants of the parish only, or upon 
them or [and ?] the occupiers of lands dwelling in 
that parish, or whether such as occupy lands in that 
parish and dwell in another parish shall be taxed ?”! 
If they are well reported, their style is far from lucid; 
but it is plain that, besides wanting to know whether 
the non-resident occupier was to be rated, they wished 
to know whether the same standard—that of ability 
—was to be adopted in assessing these miscellaneous 
rates as in assessing the poor-rate. The answer of 
the Chief Justice was: “If the statute in particular 
cases give no special direction, it is good discretion to 
go according to the rate of taxation for the poor; but 
when the statutes themselves give direction, follow 
that.” The rates mentioned by the country gentle- 
men, together with the other county rates then in 
existence. were consolidated and. so far as assessment 
! Dalton, Country Justice, ed. of 1742, p. 173. 
2 For bridges, under 22 Hen. VIII, c. 5, and 1 Ann, c. 18; for 
jails, under 11 & 12 W, IIL, c. 19, which authorised quarter-sessions 
“by equal proportions to distribute and charge the . . . sums of 
money . . . upon the several hundreds, lathes, wapentakes, rapes, 
wards, or other division” of the county; for houses of correction, 
under 7 Jac, L, c. 4; for prisoners in the King's Bench and Mar- 
shalsea, under 43 Eliz., ¢. 2; for prisoners in county jails, under 
14 Eliz, c. 5; for setting prisoners on work, under 18 & 19 Car. IL, 
c. 9 (vulgo, 19 Car. IL, c. 4), which empowered quarter-sessions to 
raise money to provide a stock of materials for the purpose “in