Note 762 — APPENDIX XII.

All these inquiries refer to the statute of Elizabeth concerning labourers (5 Eliz. c. 4) or to the clause in the poor law of 1601 (43 Eliz. c. 2) which ordered the overseers to set to work all persons who had no means to maintain themselves. See above, pp. 140, 161. Some of the regulations of the former statute provide that in many employments servants should not be retained for less than a year; that the rates of wages should be fixed by the justices in Quarter Sessions every year; that a quarter's warning should be given if either master or servant desired to terminate the engagement at the end of the term, and that a testimonial should be obtained by a servant before he left his own parish or town, and should be shown to his new master before he obtained a fresh engagement. The statute also settled the conditions of apprenticeship, and limited the right of becoming an apprentice in certain crafts to the sons of those who possessed a little property. It also provided that all persons between twelve and sixty not otherwise employed, might be compelled to serve in husbandry. Several other references to the execution of this statute occur in the reports here printed. See B., Westmill and Sawbridgeworth, also D and E.