6l2 LABOUR AND WAGES. 



quitting employment shall be imprisoned ; the seventh, that 

 servants are not to leave a city or parish without a testimonial, 

 and that those who do so without it shall be imprisoned, or if 

 they held a forged one, should be whipped ; the eighth, that if 

 a master takes a servant without a testimonial, he shall be 

 fined 5. 



By the ninth clause, the assessors are to define the hours of 

 work, and id. an hour is to be deducted for every default 1 ; by 

 the tenth, any who struck work were made liable to a month's 

 imprisonment and >$ fine ; by the eleventh, the rates of wages 

 were to be fixed by the justices in quarter sessions, certified in 

 Chancery, approved by the Privy Council, and proclaimed by 

 the sheriff 2 ; by the twelfth, a penalty of 10 is put on every 

 justice who is absent from the rating sessions ; by the thirteenth, 

 penalties are put, on the giver of higher wages of ten days' 

 imprisonment and $ fine, on the receiver of twenty-one days' 

 imprisonment, the contract being declared void ; by the four- 

 teenth, a workman assaulting a master is to be imprisoned for 

 not less than a year; by the fifteenth, artificers are com- 

 pellable to work in harvest, or be punished with the stocks ; 

 and by the sixteenth, migration for harvest-work is permitted 

 to the labourer, from his own county to any other. 



By the seventeenth, women between twelve and forty years 

 of age are compellable, if single, to work by the year, week or 

 day ; by the eighteenth, certain persons may take apprentices 

 in husbandry ; by the nineteenth, householders in towns may 

 take apprentices for seven years' terms ; by the twentieth, 

 merchants are not to take apprentices from parents, unless they 

 have at least 4os. a-year freehold estate ; by the twenty-first, 

 householders may take two apprentices, being children of 

 artificers ; by the twenty- second, certain merchants are to take 

 no apprentice except from parents who have a freehold estate 

 of at least $ annual value ; by the twenty-third, artisans may 



1 The day is never less than eight hours. The rates of payment will be found 

 below. 



3 This clause supplies the reason for the insertion of the Rutland and Lancashire 

 assessments among the list of Elizabeth's proclamations. 



