n's household, may
be compelled to labor at the request of any person using an art or
mystery, and all persons between twelve and sixty not otherwise
employed may be compelled to serve by the year in husbandry. The
masters may not dismiss, nor the servants unduly depart; nor leave the
city or parish of their service without a testimonial; that is to say,
a certificate of due cause under the seal of the town or constable and
two honest householders. The hours of labor are still fixed from 5
A.M. to 7 P.M., between March and September, with two and one-half
hours for meal times, drink times, and sleep. From September to May,
from dawn to sunset, and sleep times only allowed from May to
August. A penalty of one month's imprisonment and fine is imposed on
artificers and laborers leaving their work unfinished. Wages are still
to be fixed by the justices of the peace, and it is made a penal
offence to give or receive higher wages than the lawful rate, and all
contracts for higher wages are void. Unmarried women between twelve
and forty may be compelled to serve in like manner, and everybody
has to work at harvest time, that is to say, artificers as well as
laborers. The elaborate law of apprenticeship dates also from this
great statute, and no one can use a manual art who has not been
apprenticed to the same for seven years. One journeyman shall be kept
for each three apprentices; disputes are to be settled by the justices
of the peace, and indeed the whole labor contract is regulated as
carefully as the most statute-mad of modern labor leaders could
desire, though hardly, perhaps, then, in the sole interest of the
workingman. If this statute was ever repealed, it was in very recent
times.

(1571) The year of the statute against fraudulent conveyances, and
of another poor law, with provisions for the punishment of "rogues,
vagabonds and sturdy beggars," who are defined to include those going
about the country "using sybtyll craftye and unlawfull Games or Playes
... Palmestrye ... or fantasticall Imaginacons.... Fencers Bearewardes
and Common Players," and the penalty for harboring such vagabonds was
twenty shillings. We are a long time from the knighting of Sir Henry
Irving. In 1575 comes another act for setting the poor to work, and
the punishing of tramps and beggars.

In 1571 also is the first formal complaint of monopolies by the
Commons. Coal, oil, salt, vinegar, starch, iron, glass, and many other
commodities were al