whom I have quoted, the law-makers of those days also saw to it that the
laborer should not escape the original terms of Eve's surrender to "that
first grand thief who clomb into God's fold." Under a statute of Richard
II. the laborer was forbidden to remove from one part of the kingdom to
another, or to otherwise seek to raise the price of his labor. This law
stood for centuries, and was reiterated in the seventeenth George II.
and the thirty-second George III., along with fixed wages for services
rendered. Personal liberty was held to be the privilege of the
proprietary class. By a statute of Henry VIII. (1536), children of five
years and up, were compelled to labor. A man able to work who refused a
proffer of work was, according to law, dragged to the nearest town on a
hurdle, stripped, and whipped through the town until his body was
covered with blood. For a second offense his right ear was cut off and
he received the bastinado. For a third offense he was put to death. An
act passed under Edward VI. (1555) provided that the able-bodied laborer
refusing work should be branded on the breast with the letter V and
adjudged to the informer as his slave for two years. The master might
fasten a ring about the neck, arm, or leg.