Consolation to the Overseers of the Poor.

In pleasing jolly farmers well
    You make the tradesmen snuff
And if you seek to please the trade
    Then how the “poddies” huff!

Endeavour to content the poor,
    The rich will cry, “For shame!”
Or seek respect among the rich
    And gain a villains name.

The scorn of every idle clown
    And every shameless wench;
With now and then a charming cuff
    Of honour from the Bench.

For now his Worship orders this,
    Anon he orders that –
“Your poor,” he cried, “are now too lean –
    And now too proud and fat!”

Well, leave it all to take its course,
    You’re called a shocking tool;
And yet if you resume your task,
    Oh, what a meddling fool!

Glorious employment, honorable post,
The least respected when deserving most;
Who, then, will cease to covet and revere,
The charming office of an Overseer?

~

Richard Lower wrote this poem circa 1828. Long before that, recriminations by those who had to pay the Rate against those who spent it had sometimes been bitter. On “April ye 4^th 1743”, for instance, the Chiddingly Vestry found it necessary to reach the following decision, to which seventeen people put their signatures:

“An Agreement then made by the Churchwardens and Overseers and other inhabitants of the Parish of Chiddingly that no Churchwarden nor Overseer shall day and date above written charge anything for their time and horses uppon any journey whethersoever but be allowed for what money they lay out of their Pocket with Reason we Whose Names are hereunder subscribed do consent to the said Agreement. Witness our Hands.”