40 Transactions. 



for less than one full year, therefore for preventing such 

 inconveniences for the time to come it is hereby enacted and 

 ordained that no servant shall hereafter fee or engage with 

 a new master for less than the space of one year to serve 

 his said master : and it shall be in the power of the master 

 to keep him or her as his servant for that time : and albeit 

 he or she should fee to another such feeing is declared void 

 and null, and the servant shall be liable to be fined as above : 

 and it shall not be in the power of the masters to turn off 

 their servants for one year after feeing, under the above 

 penalties, unless when sufficient cause can be shown before 

 some of the Justices. Provided always that if both the 

 masters and servants voluntarily agree to part at the end of 

 half a year they shall have liberty to do so : and it is hereby 

 farther enacted that no master hire domestic servants, male 

 or female, for ordinary household service or labour and hus- 

 bandry within or without house within this shire, and that 

 no servant hire himself or herself preceding the first day of 

 March as to those whose entry shall be at Whitsunday, and 

 the first day of September as to those whose entry to their 

 service shall be at Martinmas, (excepting always that mas- 

 ters may hire their own servants at any time,) certifying the 

 eontraveners hereof, either masters or servants, that they 

 ^all not only be liable in a fine of half a year's fee conform 

 to the regulations above mentioned, and shall be further 

 proceeded against as the Justices shall think fit, but all 

 agreements made with servants before the times above men- 

 tioned shall be void and null and of no effect : and whereas 

 there is a great penuiy of good servants, and that many of 

 them are frequently much inclined to idleness, and both men 

 and women servants very often leave their service and keep 

 themselves idle without any visible lawful employment, 

 for preventing all which inconveniences for the future the 

 said Justices hereby enact and ordain that no persons who 

 have been in the use of hiring themselves as domestic ser- 

 vants to husbandmen or labourers of the ground shall betake 

 ■themselves to any other employment without a license from 



