Page:Landholding in England.djvu/88

 mercy" on the part of those who ought to have carried them out, partly because there have always been more idle and vicious persons in England than "in other regions," and more "perverse." "If they were punished with death, whipping, and other corporal pain it were no more than they deserve." But on second thoughts the framers reflect that it is better to make them "profitable." So now:

Any person who brings before two Justices of the Peace "any runagate servant, and any other which liveth idle and loitering by the space of three days, shall have him for a slave." The justices shall cause him to be marked "with an hot iron on the breast, with the mark of V.," and adjudge him to be "the slave" of the person who brought him, or of that person's heirs and assigns, for two years; "and he shall take the said slave and give him bread and water, or small drink, and refuse meat, and cause him to work, by beating, chaining, or otherwise, in such work and labour as he shall put him unto, be it never so vile." And if "such slave" absent himself within the two years for fourteen days, then two justices shall adjudge him "to be marked on the forehead or the ball on the cheek with an hot iron with the sign of an S., and further shall be adjudged to be slave to his said master for ever." And if he runs away a second time, he shall be adjudged a felon—that is, shall be hanged. "It shall be lawful for any person, to whom shall be adjudged a slave, to put a ring of iron round his neck, arm, or leg." A Justice of the Peace may bind "a beggar man's child" apprentice up to the age of 14, and a woman-child up to 20 years of age. And "if the said child run away," his master may use him for the said term "as his slave." A "clerk convict or attainted" (perhaps for refusing to admit the supremacy in matters spiritual of the child Edward) was to be "a slave for one year" to any who would become bound for him, and to be used as a vagabond. This, if he could make his purgation. If he could not by law, then to be a slave for live years, and used in all respects except the branding as a slave.

Never before did any civilised government (or any uncivilised ?) give its poor subjects to its rich ones, to be slaves without wages, to be branded with "S" for "slave," to be whipped, chained, have a ring round their necks as though they were dogs, and be hanged if they tried to escape.