Miscellaneous Statutory Rates to 1640 33 
to such reasonable sum and sums of money as to 
them shall be thought meet and convenient, in due 
and proportionable manner, according as rates, tasks, 
and tallages have been before this time used to be 
there rated and levied, or as near thereunto as they 
can.” If we suppose, as we reasonably may, that this 
provision was intended to declare the meaning of the 
Statute of Bridges rather than to alter or add to it, 
we may infer that in 1580 good authorities were of 
opinion that the taxation under that statute should 
be apportioned as rates, tasks, and tallages had usually 
been apportioned. Thus the statute, instead of clearing 
anything up, merely throws us back on pre-existing 
custom. 
Close upon the Statute of Bridges follows an act 
for building county jails (23 Hen. VIIL, c. 2), passed 
in 1531-2. This authorised the justices of twenty- 
five of the counties to call together the high con- 
stables, tithing-men, or borough-holders, of every 
hundred, lathe, or wapentake of the shire, and by 
their assents, agreements, and discretion, tax and set 
every resident in the shire having land, tenements, 
rents, or annuities of estate of inheritance or for time 
of life to the clear yearly value of 40s. or above, or 
being worth in movable substance the clear value of 
£20 or above. Here is one bright spot in the midst 
of obscurity. The persons to be taxed—owners of pro- 
perty real and personal, “resident,” not “inhabiting,” 
in the shire—are plainly specified, and it is clearly 
implied that they are to be taxed in proportion to 
the value of the income derived from their property, 
movables being assumed to produce an income of 
10 per cent. on their capital value.