The Old Poor Law was a parish-based system; there were around 15,000 such parishes based upon the area around a parish church. The system allowed for despotic behaviour from the overseers of the poor, but as overseers of the poor would know their paupers they were considered able to differentiate between the deserving and undeserving poor making the system both more humane and initially more efficient. The Elizabethan Poor Law operated at a time when the population was small enough for everyone to know everyone else, therefore people's circumstances would be known and the idle poor would be unable to claim on the parishes' poor rate. The system provided social stability yet by 1750 needed to be adapted to cope with population increases, greater mobility and regional price variations.