capital. When whipping,
branding, and short terms of imprisonment, did not suffice to compel
men to work, a law was passed to brand able-bodied vagrants on the
chest with a "V," [Sidenote: 1547] and to assign them to some honest
neighbor "to have and to hold as a slave for the space of two years
then next following." The master should "only give him bread and water
and small drink and such refuse of meat as he should think meet to
cause the said slave to work." If the slave still idled, or if he ran
away and was caught again he was to be marked on the face with an "S"
and to be adjudged a slave for life. If finally refractory he was to
be sentenced as a felon. This terrible measure, intended partly to
reduce lawless vagrancy, partly to supply cheap labor to employers,
failed of its purpose and was repealed in two years. Its re-enactment
was vainly urged by Cecil upon Parliament in 1559. As a substitute for
it in this year the law was passed forbidding masters to receive any
workman without a testimonial from his last employer; laborers were not
allowed to stop work or change employers without good cause, and
conversely employers were forbidden to dismiss servants "unduly."

[Sidenote: The proletariat]

In Germany the features of the modern struggle between owners and
workers are plainest. In mining, especially, there developed a real
proletariat, a class of laborers seeking employment wherever it was
best paid and combining and striking for higher wages. To combat them
were formed pools of employers to keep down wages and to blacklist
agitators. Typical of these was the agreement made by Duke George of
{555} Saxony and other large mine-owners not to raise wages, [Sidenote:
1520] not to allow miners to go from place to place seeking work, and
not to hire any troublesome agitator once dismissed by any operator.

It is extraordinary how rapidly many features of the modern proletariat
developed. Take, for example, the housing problem. As this became
acute some employers built model tenements for their workers. Others
started stores at which they could buy food and clothing, and even paid
them in part in goods instead of in money. Labor tended to become
fluid, moving from one town to another and from one industry to another
according to demand. Such a thing had been not unknown in the previous
centuries; it was strongly opposed by law in the sixteenth. The new
risks run by workers were brought out when, for