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 in 1579 as 6s. a week; some of Henslowe's agreements of 1597 provide for wages of 5s., 6s. 8d., and 8s. There was some economy to be secured by doubling small parts. How far this was facilitated by any use of masks is open to doubt. Boys were regularly employed to take female parts, and although it would be going rather too far to say that a woman never appeared upon an Elizabethan stage, women were not included in the ordinary companies. The boys were apprenticed to individuals, and their masters had to pay rather than receive premiums. In return they charged wages to the company. Henslowe gave £8 for a boy in 1597 and got 3s. a week from the Admiral's for his wages. John Shank in 1635 claimed that he had had to give £40 for a single boy, and £200 in all. Contributions to local rates came to about £5 a year. The cost of apparel and properties is difficult to estimate. A company bought or accumulated a stock, and might also have at its disposal a stock belonging to the owner of its theatre. Individual actors may have had their private wardrobes. Fresh purchases were only necessitated by new productions, but these were frequent. The special mounting of Court performances was helped out by the Revels Office. The actor in Greene's Groatsworth of Wit (1592) boasted that his share of apparel would not be sold for