to keep an account of receipts and of expendi- CH. 1. ture, and relief was administered with some approach to modern formalities. A further excel

sory train

lent but severe enactment empowered the parish officers to take up all idle children above the age of five years, and appoint them to masters of hus- Compulbandry or other craft or labour to be taught;' and ing of the if any child should refuse the service to which he children of was appointed, or run away without cause reasonable being shown for it,' he might be publicly whipped with rods, at the discretion of the justice of the peace before whom he was brought.

the poor.

bodied va

So far, no complaint can be urged against these provisions: they display only that severe but true humanity, which, in offering fair and liberal maintenance for all who will consent to be honest, insists, not unjustly, that its offer shall be accepted, and that the resources of charity shall not be trifled away. On the clause, however, which gave to the Act its especial and distinguishing character, there will be large difference of opinion. 'The sturdy vagabond' who by the Ableearlier statute was condemned on his second offence to lose the whole or a part of his ear, was condemned by the amended found a third time offending, with the upon him of his mutilation, 'to suffer pains and execution of death, as a felon and as an enemy of the commonwealth.' So the letter stands. For an able-bodied man to be caught a third time begging was held a crime deserving death, and the sentence was intended, on fit occasions, to be executed. The The poor man's advantages, which I

grants

right caught beg

ging a third Act, if time to suf

fer death

mark as felons.

CH. I. have estimated at so high a rate, were not pur

So

chased without drawbacks. He might not change
his master at his will, or wander from place to
place. He might not keep his children at his
home unless he could answer for their time. If
out of employment, preferring to be idle, he
might be demanded for work by any master of
thecraft' to which he belonged, and compelled
to work whether he would or no. If caught
begging once, being neither aged nor infirm, he
was whipped at the cart's tail.
If caught a
second time, his ear was slit, or bored through
with a hot iron. If caught a third time, being
thereby proved to be of no use upon this earth,
but to live upon it only to his own hurt and to
that of others, he suffered death as a felon.
the law of England remained for sixty years.
First drawn by Henry, it continued unrepealed
through the reigns of Edward and of Mary, sub-
sisting, therefore, with the deliberate approval of
both the great parties between whom the country
was divided. Reconsidered under Elizabeth, the
same law was again formally passed; and it was,
therefore, the expressed conviction of the English
nation, that it was better for a man not to live at
all than to live a profitless and worthless life.
The vagabond was a sore spot upon the common-
wealth, to be healed by wholesome discipline if
the gangrene was not incurable; to be cut away
with the knife if the milder treatment of the cart-
whip failed to be of profit.*

*It is to be remembered that one side by the sanctuary systhe criminal law was checked on tem, on the other by the prac

was CH. I.

The unset

of the

possible cause for

measures of

so extreme

A measure so extreme in its severity was partly dictated by policy. The state of the country was critical; and the danger from ques- tled state tionable persons traversing it unexamined and country a uncontrolled was greater than at ordinary times. But in point of justice as well as of prudence, it harmonized with the iron temper of the age, and it severity, answered well for the government of a fierce and powerful people, in whose hearts lay an intense hatred of rascality, and among whom no one need have lapsed into evil courses except by deliberate preference for them. The moral substance of the English must have been strong indeed when it admitted of such hardy treatment; but on the whole, the people were ruled as they preferred to be ruled; and if wisdom may be tested by success, Yet, on the the manner in which they passed the great crisis they were of the Reformation is the best justification of justified by their princes. The era was great throughout Europe. The Italians of the age of Michael Angelo; the Spaniards who were the contemporaries of Cortez; the Germans who shook off the pope at the call of Luther; and the splendid chivalry of Francis I. of France, were no common men. But they were all brought face to face with the same trials, and none met them as the English met them. The English alone never lost their

tice of benefit of clergy. Habit in theory. See vol. iii. of this was too strong for legislation, work, pp. 406-425, where the and these privileges continued subject is discussed at length. to protect criminals long after In a note at p. 407 of that they were abolished by statute. volume will be found an account There is abundant evidence that of the legend that 72,000 crimithe execution of justice was as nals were executed in the reign lax in practice as it was severe of Henry VIII.

whole,

success.

CH. I. self-possession; and if they owed something to fortune in their escape from anarchy, they owed

summary.

more to the strong hand and steady purpose of

their rulers.

To conclude this chapter then.

Concluding In the brief review of the system under which England was governed, we have seen a state of things in which the principles of political economy were, consciously or unconsciously, contradicted; where an attempt, more or less successful, was made to bring the production and distribution of wealth under the moral rule of right and wrong; and where those laws of supply and demand, which we are now taught to regard as immutable ordinances of nature, were absorbed or superseded by a higher code. It is necessary for me to repeat that I am not holding up the sixteenth century as a model which the nineteenth might safely follow. The population has become too large, employment has become too complicated and fluctuating, to admit of external control; while, in default of control, the relapse upon self-interest as the one motive principle is certain to ensue, and when it ensues is absolute in its operations. But as, even with us, these so-called ordinances of nature in time of war consent to be suspended, and duty to his country becomes with every good citizen a higher motive of action than the advantages which he may gain in an enemy's market; so it is not uncheering to look back upon a time when the nation was in a normal condition of militancy against social injustice; when the government was enabled by happy circumstances to pursue

Concluding

into detail a single and serious aim at the well- Сí. 1. being-well-being in its widest sense-of all members of the commonwealth. The world, indeed, summary. was not made particularly pleasant. Of liberty, in the modern sense of the word, of the supposed right of every man 'to do what he will with his own' or with himself, there was no idea. To the question, if ever it was asked, May I not do what I will with my own? there was the brief answer, No man may do what is wrong, either with that which is his own or with that which is another's. Workmen were not allowed to take advantage of the scantiness of the labour market to exact extravagant wages. Capitalists were not allowed to drive the labourers from their holdings, and destroy their healthy independence. The antagonism of interests was absorbed into a relation of which equity was something more than the theoretic principle, and employers and employed were alike amenable to a law which both were compelled to obey. The working man of modern times has bought the extension of his liberty at the price of his material comfort. The higher classes have gained in luxury what they have lost in power. It is not for the historian to balance advantages. His duty is with the facts.