is incontestable; and the wages for ordinary labour seems to have been quite double its old amount in this century. It may be interesting to record some of the salaries of the period. In the household of the Earl of Northumberland, in 1511, the principal priest of the chapel received £5 a year; a chaplain graduate, £3 6s. 8d.; a chaplain, not a graduate, £2; a minstrel, £4; a serving-boy, 13s. 4d.; all these being lodged and fed in addition. In 1500 a mason received 4d. a day, and 2d. for diet. In 1575 a master mason received 1s. a day, and a common labourer 8d. In 1601 a master mason had 1s. 2d. a day, and a labourer, 10d. The long continuance of internal peace had increased the population from two millions and a half in the commencement of the fifteenth century, to six millions and a half at the end of the sixteenth; but the increase of trade, of commerce, and of tillage, had not been able to absorb a tithe of the homeless and destitute people who had been increasing since the abolition of villanage and the destruction of the monasteries, which had fed swarms of them. We have had occasion to show that these vagabond tribes overran the country like a flood, "vagabonds, rogues, and sturdy beggars "carrying terror and crime everywhere. Henry VIII., Harrison tells us, in the course of his reign, hanged of robbers, thieves, and vagabonds, no fewer than 72,000, and Elizabeth, toward the latter part of her reign, sent 300 or 400 of them annually to the gallows.
Hunting the Hare in St Giles's Fields in the days of Queen Mary
We find a statute of the first year of Edward VI. containing the following:—"Idleness and vagabondry is the mother and root of all thefts, robberies, and all evil acts and other mischiefs, and the multitude of people given thereto hath always been here within this realm very groat and more in number, as it may appear, than in other regions; the which idleness and vagabondry all the king's highness noble progenitors, kings of this realm, and this high court of Parliament hath often and with great travail gone about and assayed with godly acts and statutes to repress; yet until this our time it hath not had that success which hath been wished; but—partly by foolish pity and mercy of them which should have seen the said godly laws executed, partly by perverse natures and long-accustomed idleness of the persons given to loitering—the said godly statutes hitherto hath had small effect, and idle and vagabond persons hath been suffered to remain and increase, and yet so do." "If," continues the Act, "they should be punished by death, whipping, imprisonment, or with other corporal pain, it were not without their desert, for the example of others and to the benefit of the commonwealth; yet if they could be brought to be made profitable and do service, it wore much to be wished and desired." Such words would lead us to conclude that they were about to adopt conciliatory measures with regard to this troublesome class, but we find on the contrary the harshest enactments put in execution. Thus, every person found idle and wandering without any effort to find work was to be considered a vagabond, and was liable to be seized by any one and forced to labour, for which he was to receive only his daily food. If he attempted to run away, he was to be branded on the breast with the letter "V" and made the slave of his owner for two years. If he made a second attempt for liberty, he was to be branded on the forehead or cheek with the letter "S" and made his master's slave for ever; while a third effort at escape was punishable by death. The severity of this law prevented its being properly executed, and caused its repeal in two years. After various futile enactments, Henry VIII., in 1530, gave the sick and impotent permission to beg; and in
