Non-Statutory Rates to 1601 21] 
legal powers of the governing body to impose rates 
seem to have been felt till 1549. In that year 
assessors were appointed “to assess the burgesses and 
inhabitants” to pay “scott and lott for the town debts. 
And the bailiffs shall assess tne assessors. Provided 
if the order be found contrary to the king’s laws, the 
same shall be void.” The doubts must have been set 
at rest, as the order was confirmed in the next year, 
and the precedent was followed in 1558. In 1592 
there was rating for a preachers wages, and in 1597 
the burgesses’ salary was rated on the inhabitants. 
In those days ratepayers appear to have been expected 
not only to pay, but to refrain from grumbling, for we 
find that, on 4th December 1573, “ Richard Golty, one 
of the burgesses of this town, being allotted to the 
sum of 4os, did upon the 10 of October, in the 
presence of two persons of credit, say that the scott 
and lott rated on him was done against reason, con- 
science, charity, and honesty; and being convicted 
thereof, he was fined £5, and ordered to pay the 
said 40s.” 
It would have been a miracle if Tudor legislation 
had succeeded in creating a rate altogether unaffected 
by the uninterrupted rating practice of three centuries. 
To understand our present system, based upon the act 
of 1601, it is therefore necessary to know something 
about the principles on which these eurly non-statutory 
rates were apportioned. 
The sewers-rate of Romney Marsh presents no diffi- 
culty. It was clearly governed by the principle that 
each person whose property was benefited should pay 
a proportion governed by the acreage, and afterwards 
the value, of that property, in comparison with the