OF PUBBECK. 199 



to obtain that settled price from the London purchasers. These 

 provisions run as follows: — 



And for the future improvement and better management of 

 the decaying Trade of the said Company and to prevent the many 

 greate and growing Evills that have and doe dayly attend the 

 severall dealers in the Stone Trade who by reason of the dead- 

 nessc of the said Trade have of late yeares made it their practice 

 to carry their said Stone to London in Small Quantities having 

 but litttle Stocks And in order to dispose thereof have and still 

 doe Endeavour to undersell one another to the infinite prejudice 

 of the Stone Trade by meanes whereof the price and vallue of 

 the said Stone is soe lessened and beate downe that scarce any 

 thing can now bee gotten by it and consequently the wages for 

 labour in drawing and working the said Stone is reduced soe 

 very lowe that many of the members of the said Company are 

 thereby rendered incapable to support their ffamilys by the said 

 Trade Which mischeifes and inconveniencyes if not timely pre- 

 vented will tend to the greate impoverishment if not the utter 

 Ruine of the said Company * Wherefore it is hereby further 

 agreed and consented unto as foUoweth (viz:) 



Imprimis. That from henceforth all and every the Members 

 of the said Company which now are or hereafter shall bee made 

 appeare to bee worth in substance ffifty pounds and their Debts 

 paid shall from time to time bee obliged that what Quantity of 

 Stone shall bee by them provided or made in order to send to 

 London shall be brought into a Joynt Stock to be agreed and 



♦ There is a curious document bearing date 1687, ten years 

 previous to the Articles last set out, by which certain persons " being 

 inhabitants of severall Pr'shes of Sandwich and Lanckton within the 

 Isle of Purbeck & County of Dorset Marblers and Merchants in the said 

 Trade" bound themselves to resist an imposition, as they thought it, 

 on the part of the London buyers. These latter claimed to have the 

 stone examined and to deduct the cost of the searcher from the price 

 of the Stone delivered. The necessity of searching seems to intimate a 

 deterioration of the stone supplied, which indeed the allusion in the 

 Articles of 1697, of breaking the stone by the manager if unmerchant- 

 able, would seem to confirm. It may be, that this was as much the 

 cause of decay in the trade, as the underselling recited above as threat- 

 ening impoverishment and ruin to the Company. 



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