648 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION F. 



separately engaged, as to the particular branch of work they 

 would undertake, and bound them to execute any work 

 assigned to them by their master ; though this did not 

 prevent their undertaking contracts jointly, and dividing the 

 work at their own discretion, " providing it to be done well 

 and lawfully." A workman was not allowed to leave his 

 work in one town to go to another, under pain of imprison- 

 ment ; and he might even be branded with a hot iron for 

 absconding from work he had undertaken. 



Down to the fifteenth century it was lawful to press men 

 for service under the King. Stonemasons, bricklayers, car- 

 penters, and other artificers were liable to be seized at any 

 time or place and employed on public works at a rate of 

 wages often below that ruling for private employment, with 

 no choice but imprisonment as an alternative. 



An Act was passed in the reign of Richard II., which 

 decreed that no labourer might go from one place to 

 another unless he bore a letter patent under the King's 

 Seal specifying the cause of his going and the time of his 

 return. In the same reign it was enacted that the Justices 

 were to settle and proclaim between Easter and Michaelmas 

 what should be the wages of day labourers. 



In the reign of Henry IV. labourers and artificers were 

 ordered to be put in the stocks for any evasion of the many 

 laws that had accumulated for the regulation of labour ; and 

 any town which did not possess these moral persuaders was 

 to pay a penalty. 



Time after time the rates of wages and hours of work in 

 the different trades were fixed with exasperating minuteness, 

 only to break down with the strain of detail, or become 

 abortive from the perversity of the human nature such 

 legislation sought to control. 



In the reign of Henry VIII. a vigorous attempt was 

 made to deal with the unemployed question, by a decree 

 which provided for the summary punishment by whipping 

 of any person who, being able-bodied, refused work or was 

 found begging. A persistent refusal to work when called 

 upon to do so entailed the penalty of execution as a common 

 felon. 



For three years a law was in force under which vagrants 

 might be taken up, branded with a hot iron, and made slaves 

 for life ; but this disgrace to the Statute Book was then 

 repealed. 



In the reign of Elizabeth an elaborate attempt was made 



