densome to the parish to which he had removed. To prevent him from obtaining a legal residence by clandestine settlement during the forty days, he was compelled to give notice to the same officers as to the place of his abode and the number of persons in his family. His legal residence began only from the delivery of this notice. The effect of these statutes was to confine the great body of the English laborers to their native parishes, and thus not only to put a restriction upon their personal liberty, but also to diminish and even destroy their ability to improve their condition. So small were the wages allowed by the justices, that each parish was forced to levy additional taxes to obtain the means of meeting the charges resulting from the number of families who were unable to earn entirely their own support.[1]
Even if we allow for the greater purchasing capacity of money in that age as compared with the present, the remuneration of the laboring classes appears exceedingly small. According to the rates adopted by the county of Rutland in 1610, three years after the foundation of Jamestown, rates which continued in force until the beginning of the Civil War and were restored in 1682, the annual wages of a ploughman were fifty shillings; of an ordinary workingman, forty shillings; of women who had been taught to bake and brew, twenty-six shillings and eight pence; of a common female drudge, sixteen shillings; of girls under sixteen, fourteen shillings. A mower of the average strength, who lead an allowance of meat, received five pence a day; a male reaper, four pence; a female reaper, three pence; and a female haymaker, two pence. When food was not provided by the employer, the amount of these wages was in each instance doubled. Omitting the period of harvest from consideration, agri-
- ↑ Rogers’ History of Agriculture and Prices in England, vol. V, p. 101.
