204 THE MARBLERS 



So lately as the last summer a person was employed in a 

 quarry at Swanage, who was neither a freeman nor son of a 

 freeman. Objection was made to his employment, and no at- 

 tention being paid to the objection, it was intended to put in force 

 the penalty, and the other freemen purposed boldly to carry off 

 five pounds worth of stone from the stock of the delinquent. 

 The proceeding was one which could certainly not have been 

 legally justified at the present day in that form of distress. But 

 the old custom prevailed, and the employer, himself a freeman, 

 withdrew the obnoxious labourer. 



It is not within my present purpose to examine the politico- 

 economical bearing of a Company so interesting from its 

 antiquity, but so little in accordance with the modern doctrines 

 of Free Trade. We cannot but feel that if the trade were worth 

 much cultivation, the Company would hardly find it worth its 

 while to maintain its existing rigour of law. But as a curious 

 instance of an ancient establishment keeping up its customs and 

 actually enforcing them (as in the instance I have named) down 

 to the present date, it is worthy of observation. 



It is probably no unkind wish to form for the well conducted 

 body of men who support themselves by the trade, that the 

 advance of iron and steam may render that trade a subject of 

 more competition than has hitherto been the case ; and that they 

 may find it to their advantage to let the real working of the 

 Association, with its companion the Truck- System, which still 

 practically exists at Swanage, find a place solely among the 

 antiquities of Purbeck. 



0. W. FABBER. 



