Middlemen in English Business 189 



groups of ten or twenty and sent one of their members to do the buy- 

 ing for the whole, and a division was made upon his return. This is 

 a particularly interesting case showang the need of a middleman, but 

 where none arises due, likely, to the spasmodic nature of the traffic 

 he would serve. These " store" sheep were sold at the local or London 

 market when fattened. 



The practices of the graziers had been the subject of legislation 

 from an early date. In the Edwardian statute'^ against ingrossers, 

 regrators, and forestallers, 1552, sheep, lambs, and calves were by 

 name included in the list of victuals, none of which were to be 

 regrated, etc., and it seems cattle were included in the more gen- 

 eral terms. But in addition to this prohibition, a further one was 

 laid to the effect that no one was permitted to buy cattle or sheep 

 and sell them again alive unless he had kept and fed them for the 

 space of five weeks on his own land or common. It has been shown 

 that these statutes fell into decay after 1660 and were not executed.'- 



DROVER. 



In 1552 drovers had "been wont" to perform the double function 

 of dealing in cattle and of driving them to market. The same con- 

 cept attaches to the name in the statute of 1670 and the acts to con- 

 tinue the same in 1692, 1699, and 1706. But during the eighteenth 

 century, as the Hcense system (to be treated later) waned, the two 

 functions were differentiated and the jobber assumed the buying and 

 selling part of the business. According to the testimony of different 

 drovers before a committee of the House of Commons in 1796 the 

 drovers had become hirelings of the carcass butchers and the Smith- 

 field salesmen, and drove their cattle and sheep from the markets in 

 the country, such as Hayes, Rumford, Southall, Mile-end, etc., to 

 the city markets.^ It seems that he made regular calls or solicitations 

 from the breeders and owners of cattle to do their driving.^ During 

 the eighteenth century, therefore, the drover lost the middleman 

 quality. 



' 55-56 Ed. VI, Cap. 14. 



2 See Chap. II. 



^J. H. C, 51:639. About this time, the drover's salary and the salesman's 

 commission on Somersetshire cattle amoimted to 12i-. per head at London, Ss. at 

 Salisbury, and 3^. at Bristol. Billingsley, 'View of Somersetshire, 241. About 1760, 

 cattle were driven from Suffolk one hundred miles to London and sold, the total 

 expense for the driving, selling, keep, and turnpikes, amounting to only Ss. per 

 head. Moore, Considerations, 16. These rates appear \ery reasonable. 



* J. H. C, 51:636. 



