The IVool-Sack. visitation of the aulnager with his measur ing rod. The fine for the first offence of this character was five pounds, the second, ten, and for the third the offender had to stand exposed in the pillory in the public square or market-place of the town. Weight and coloring matters employed were also established by law, and the use of false weights, or the application of foreign substance to increase the weight of cloth were both subject to fines. After the in spection, the aulnager applied his official seal to the bales of goods, to tamper with which was punishable by a heavy fine which was divided into equal parts between the king, the inspector and the poor of the parish where the offence was committed. .The law particularly insisted that cloth should be shrunken before sale, and never in those good old days in " Merrie England" could have occurred the following episode, which is told of a certain Yankee woolen firm. Their agent, having penetrated a western State, found in the midst of the wilderness an old frontiersman with his five sturdy sons engaged in the painfully labori ous process of tearing the huge stumps from the virgin soil. To this family the agent sold ten red woollen shirts, warranted non-shrinkable. On his return the following spring, he found the clearing vastly widened, and the woodsman anxious for a large supply of his wares. On inquiry as to how they managed to use so many during the winter the old man replied : " Wall ye see, we jest fixed up a good stout kind o' framework over a pesky
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stump thet'd take us tew days to hist by hand. Then we'd hang one of them patent non-shrinkin' shirts o' yourn over the top of the frame, fastenin' the sleeves to the stump. Then Silas, he jest pours a pail of water on the shirt, an' up she comes a bringin' the stump with her slicker 'n a • greased cat; an' the best on't is they keep on shrinkin' so's we kin use 'em over an' ag'in till they git so small the ol' woman finishes 'em up on the baby." In the days of the early Edwards that agent would have been subject to " many dangers, perchance of being slain," and the head of his firm would have been sent to cool his heels in the county gaol. While so rigidly bound to be honest, the manufacturer of those times was blest in one particular, in that the law saw to it that his soul should not be harassed by strikes among his workmen. It was enacted, that any weavers of cloth guilty of entering into a combination for advancing their wages, for lessening the usual hours of work, or for de parture before the end of their agreed term of service should be sent to the House of Cor rection for three months. The government, on the other hand, kept a kindly eye on the hireling by statutes stipulating that the em ployer was to pay his workmen full wage in money promptly or be subject to a fine of ten pounds. Under these restrictions the inhabitants of England surely did not suffer the shivers consequent on the tying up of one of the heat-producing industries, as the citizens of free America suffer in this enlightened age.
