year and a day, dwelling for that period
in a walled town, these people were amongst the most diligent attendants
at the Abbey doors, and when the Abbeys were dissolved, were, no doubt,
amongst the most daring of these thieves, vagabonds, and sturdy rogues,
who, after the Robin Hood fashion, beset the highways and solitary farms
of England, and claimed their black mail in a very unceremonious style.
It was out of this class that Henry VIII. hanged his seventy-two thousand
during his reign, and, as it is said, without appearing materially to
diminish their number.

That they continued to "increase, multiply, and replenish the earth,"
overflowing all bounds, overpowering by mere populousness all the severe
laws against them of whipping, burning in the hand, in the forehead or in
the breast, and hanging, and filling the whole country with alarm, is
evident by the very act itself of Elizabeth.

Amongst these hereditary paupers who, as we have said, were found in
Stockington, there was a family of the name of Deg. This family had never
failed to demand and enjoy what it held to be its share of its ancient
inheritance. It appeared from the parish records, that they had practiced
in different periods the crafts of shoemaking, tailoring, and
chimney-sweeping; but since the invention of the stocking-frame, they
had, one and all of them, followed the profession of stocking weavers, or
as they were there called, stockingers. This was a trade which required
no extreme exertion of the physical or intellectual powers. To sit in a
frame, and throw the arms to and fro, was a thing that might either be
carried to a degree of extreme diligence, or be let down into a mere
apology for idleness. An "idle stockinger" was there no very uncommon
phrase, and the Degs were always classed under that head. Nothing could
be more admirably adapted than this trade for building a plan of parish
relief upon. The Degs did not pretend to be absolutely without work, or
the parish authorities would soon have set them to some real labor,--a
thing that they particularly recoiled from, having a very old adage in
the family, that "hard work was enough to kill a man." The Degs were
seldom, therefore out of work, but they did not get enough to meet and
tie. They had but little work if the times were bad, and if they were
good, they had large families, and sickly wives or children. Be times
what they would, therefore, the Degs were due and successful attendants