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THE FREE REGISTRY SYSTEM. 



" Honesty is the best policy." 

 When the land had become desolated through the 

 Wars of the Roses, and England lay half unpeopled by 

 the feuds of York and Lancaster, labourers were few, and, 

 as a consequence, higher wages were demanded ; but the 

 government stepped in and declared the wages of 

 labourers, artificers, and others should be the same as 

 they were before the civil wars ; and by the Act of Parlia- 

 ment, 5 Elizabeth, cap. 4, sec. 5, it was enacted : — 



"That the justices of every shire, riding, and liberty, or the more 

 part of them, being then resident within the same, and the 

 sheriff, if he conveniently may, and every mayor and other 

 head officer within any city or to^vn corporate * "' * * * 

 shall yearly in Easter Sessions, or within six weeks next after, 

 assemble and call unto them such discreet and grave persons 

 as they shall think meet ; and having respect to the plenty or 

 scarcity of the time, and other circumstances, shall have 

 authority to limit and appoint the wages as well of such of the 

 said artificers, handicraftsmen, or any other labourer, servant, 

 or workman whose wages in time past have been by any order 

 or statute rated and appointed, as also the wages of all other 

 labourers, artificers, workmen, or apprentices of husbandry 

 which have not been rated, as they shall think meet by their 

 discretion to be rated, limited or appointed." 



By the 6th section of the same act the rate of wages 



fixed was to be proclaimed, and by the 18 section it 



was enacted : — 



" That any person giving more wages than that fixed was to be 

 imprisoned for 10 days and to forfeit ;^5, one half of the 

 penalty to go to the King and one half to the informer. And 

 any person accepting more than the wages fixed, was by the 

 19th section to be imprisoned for 21 days." 



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