stances necessarily to be considered, shall have authority by virtue thereof, within the limits and precincts of their several commissions, to limit, rate and appoint the wages, as well of such and so many of the said artificers, handicraftsmen, husbandmen or any other labourer, servant or workman, whose wages in time past hath been by any law or statute rated and appointed; (3) as also the wages of all other labourers, artificers, workmen or apprentices of husbandry, which have not been rated; (4) as they the same justices, mayors or head officers within their several commissions or liberties shall think meet by their discretions to be rated, limited or appointed by the year or by the day, week, month or otherwise, with meat and drink or without meat and drink; (5) and what wages every workman or labourer shall take by the great, for mowing, reaping or threshing of corn and grain, or for mowing or making of hay, or for ditching, paving, railing or hedging, by the rod, pearch, lugg, yard, pole, rope or foot, and for any other kind of reasonable labours or service; (6) and shall yearly before the twelfth day of July next after the said assessments and rates so appointed and made, certify the same ingrossed in parchment, with the considerations and causes thereof, under their hands and seals, into the Queen's most honourable court of chancery; (7) whereupon it shall be lawful to the lord chancellor of England, or lord keeper of the great seal for the time being, upon declaration thereof to the Queen's majesty, her heirs or successors, or to the lords and others of the privy council for the time being, attendant upon their persons, to cause to be printed and sent down before the first day of September next after the said certificate, into every county, to the sheriff and justices of peace there, and to the said mayor, bailiff and head officers, ten or twelve proclamations or more, containing in every of them the several rates appointed by the said justices and other head officers, as is aforesaid, with commandment by the said proclamations, to all persons, in the name of the Queen's majesty, her heirs or successors, straightly to observe the same, and to all justices, sheriffs and other officers, to see the same duly and severally observed, upon the danger of the punishment and forfeiture limited and appointed by this estatute; (8) upon receipt whereof the said sheriffs, justices of peace and the mayor and head officer in every city or town corporate, shall cause the same proclamations to be entered of record by the clerk of the peace or by the clerk of the city or town corporate; (9) and the said sheriffs, justices, and other the said mayor and head officers, shall

forthwith in open markets, upon the market-days before Michaelmas then ensuing, cause the same proclamation to be proclaimed in every city or market-town within the limits of their commission, and the same proclamation to be fixed in some convenient place of the said city and town, or in such of the most occupied market-towns, as to the said sheriffs, justices of peace and to the said mayor and head officers shall be thought meet.

"XVIII. And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, That if any person after the said proclamation shall be so sent down and published, shall by any secret ways or means, directly or indirectly retain or keep any servant, workman or labourer, or shall give any more or greater wages or other commodity, contrary to the true. intent and purport of this estatute, or contrary to the rates or wages that shall be assessed or appointed in the said proclamations; that then every person that shall so offend, and be thereof lawfully convicted before any the justices or other head officers above-remembred, or either of the said presidents and councils, shall suffer imprisonment by the space of ten days, without bail or mainprise, and shall lose and forfeit five pounds of lawful money of England.

"XIX. And that every person that shall be so retained and take wages contrary to this estatute or any branch thereof, or of the said proclamations, and shall be thereof convicted before the justices aforesaid, or any two of them, or before the mayor or other head officers aforesaid, shall suffer imprisonment by the space of one and twenty days, without bail or mainprise.

"XX. And that every retainer, promise, gift or payment of wages or other thing whatsoever contrary to the true meaning of this estatute, and every writing and bond to be made for that purpose, shall be utterly void and of none effect.

*

"XXII. Provided always, and be it enacted by the authority aforesaid, That in the time of hay or corn harvest, the justices of peace and every of them, and also the constable or other head officer of every township upon request, and for the avoiding of the loss of any corn, grain or hay, shall and may cause all such artificers and persons as be meet to labour, by the discretions of the said justices or constables, or other head officers, or by any of them, to serve by the day for the mowing, reaping, shearing, setting or inning of corn, grain

and hay, according to the skill and quality of the person; (2) and that none of the said persons shall refuse so to do, upon pain to suffer imprisonment in the stocks by the space of two days and one night; (3) and the constable of the town or other head officer of the same, where the said refusal shall be made, upon complaint to him made, shall have authority by virtue hereof to set the said offender in the stocks for the time aforesaid, and shall punish him accordingly, upon pain to lose and forfeit for not doing thereof the sum of forty shillings.

66

'XXIII. Provided also, That all persons of the counties where they have accustomed to go into other shires for harvest work, and having at that time no harvest-work sufficient in the same town or county where he or they dwelt in the winter then last past, bringing with him or them a testimonial under the hand and seal of one justice of the peace of the shire, or other head officer of the town or place that he or they come from, testifying the same, for the which he shall pay not above one penny (other than such persons as shall be retained in service, according to the form of this estatute) may repair and resort in harvest of hay or corn, from the counties wherein their dwelling-places are, into any other place or county, for the only mowing, reaping and getting of hay, corn or grain, and for the only working of harvest-works, as they might have done before the making of this estatute; any thing herein contained to the contrary notwithstanding.

"XXIV. And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, That two justices of peace, the mayor or other head officer of any city, borough or town corporate, and two aldermen, or two other discreet burgesses of the same city, borough or town corporate, if there be no aldermen, shall and may, by virtue hereof, appoint any such woman as is of the age of twelve years, and under the age of forty years and unmarried, and forth of service, as they shall think meet to serve, to be retained or serve by the year, or by the week or day, for such wages, and in such reasonable sort and manner as they shall think meet; (2) and if any such woman shall refuse so to serve, then it shall be lawful for the said justices of peace, mayor or head officers, to commit such woman to ward, until she shall be bounden to serve as is aforesaid.

"XXV. And for the better advancement of husbandry and tillage, and to the intent that such as are fit to be made apprentices to husbandry, may be bounden thereunto; (2) be it enacted by the author

ity of this present parliament, That every person being an housholder, and having and using half a ploughland at the least in tillage, may have and receive as an apprentice any person above the age of ten years, and under the age of eighteen years, to serve in husbandry, until his age of one and twenty years at the least, or until the age of twenty-four years, as the parties can agree, and the said retainer and taking of an apprentice, to be made and done by indenture,

"XXVI. And be it further enacted, That every person being an housholder, and twenty-four years old at the least, dwelling or inhabiting, or which shall dwell and inhabit in any city or town corporate, and using and exercising any art, mystery or manual occupation there, shall and may, after the feast of Saint John Baptist next coming, during the time that he shall so dwell or inhabit in any such city or town corporate, and use and exercise any such mystery, art or manual occupation, have and retain the son of any freeman, not occupying husbandry, nor being a labourer, and inhabiting in the same, or in any other city or town that now is or hereafter shall be and continue incorporate, to serve and be bound as an apprentice after the custom and order of the city of London, for seven years at the least, so as the term and years of such appren. tice do not expire or determine afore such apprentice shall be of the age of twenty-four years at the least.

"XXVII. Provided always and be it enacted, That it shall not be lawful to any person dwelling in any city or town corporate, using or exercising any of the mysteries or crafts of a merchant trafficking by traffick or trade into any the parts beyond the sea, mercer, draper, goldsmith, ironmonger, imbroiderer or clothier, that doth or shall put cloth to making and sale, to take any apprentice or servant to be instructed or taught in any of the arts, occupations, crafts or mysteries which they or any of them do use or exercise; except such servant or apprentice be his son; (2) or else that the father and mother of such apprentice or servant, shall have, at the time of taking such apprentice or servant, lands, tenements or other hereditaments, of the clear yearly value of forty shillings of one estate of inheritance or freehold at the least, to be certified under the hands and seals of three justices of the peace of the shire or shires where the said lands, tenements or other hereditaments, do or shall lie, to the mayor, bailiff or other head officers of such city or town corporate, and to be inrolled among the records there."

This Act (5 Eliz. c. 4) was explained and extended by the 1 Jac. I. c. 6, of which the third section read as follows:

"III. Be it enacted by authority of this present parliament, That the said statute, and the authority by the same statute given to any person or persons for assessing and rating of wages, and the authority to them in the said act committed, shall be expounded and construed, and shall by force of this act give authority to all persons having any such authority, to rate wages of any labourers, weavers, spinsters, and workmen or workwomen whatsoever, either working by the day, week, month, year, or taking any work at any person or persons' hand whatsoever, to be done in great or otherwise."

This last statute, which purported to re-enforce the statute 5 Eliz. c. 4, began with an admission of the inefficiency of that statute in the following words: "And whereas the said act hath not, according to the true meaning thereof, been duly put in execution, whereby the rates of wages for poor artificers, labourers and other persons whose wages was meant to be rated by the said act, have not been rated and proportioned according to the plenty, scarcity, necessity, and respect of the time, which was politickly intended by the said act."

The Act 5 Eliz. c. 4 was not repealed until the year 1875, by the Conspiracy and Protection of Property Act, 38 & 39 Vict. ch. 86, sect. 17.

Similar in purpose were the statutes of different kinds. which were intended to regulate the manufacture of different kinds of goods in respect to measurements and quality.

One of these is The Statute 4 Edw. IV., Cap. I., entitled "The Length and Breadth of Cloths to be sold. No cloths wrought beyond Sea shall be brought into England." It begins with the recital "First, Whereas many years past, and now at this day, the workmanship of cloths, and things requisite to the same, is and hath been of such fraud, deceit, and falsity, that the said cloths in other lands and countries be had in small