Page:Economic History of Virginia Vol 2.djvu/548

 should pay the regular quit-rent. If the original owner insisted upon his proprietorship in the lot, his claim was not to be allowed, but another lot as near to it as could be obtained was to be assigned him.

The regulation establishing market days in Jamestown, Wednesdays and Saturdays being selected, seemed calculated to increase the importance of the town, but in practical operation it accomplished nothing, and in consequence was repealed in 1655.

The wild character of many of the schemes agitated about the middle of the century, with a view to the promotion of town building, is illustrated by the suggestion advanced by the author of the pamphlet Virginia&#8217;s Cure. He proposed that every person in the Colony who had a large number of servants in his employment, should build a house in the town situated nearest to his plantation. Here he and his family should dwell, the planter visiting his estate as often as he considered that his interests demanded it. On Saturday afternoon, when, according to the custom prevalent in Virginia, the servants were relieved of work, the author recommended that they should be ordered to leave the plantations, a few only being instructed to remain, the rest to go to the towns in which their masters had taken up their residence, and there in their masters&#8217; houses to spend the Sabbath. This would give them an opportunity to attend divine service, a privilege from which they were debarred, at the date of this pamphlet, by the remoteness of the plantations and the sparseness of the population, both of which circumstances were hostile to the prosperity of the church in the Colony. This notion was probably suggested to the