and the thirty-second George III., along with fixed wages for services
rendered. Personal liberty was held to be the privilege of the
proprietary class. By a statute of Henry VIII. (1536), children of five
years and up, were compelled to labor. A man able to work who refused a
proffer of work was, according to law, dragged to the nearest town on a
hurdle, stripped, and whipped through the town until his body was
covered with blood. For a second offense his right ear was cut off and
he received the bastinado. For a third offense he was put to death. An
act passed under Edward VI. (1555) provided that the able-bodied laborer
refusing work should be branded on the breast with the letter V and
adjudged to the informer as his slave for two years. The master might
fasten a ring about the neck, arm, or leg.
REFORM.
Under William IV., by the act of 1832, the laboring hours of children
were reduced to _ten hours_. By the act of 1847 women were included in
the ten-hour law. By 1867 the power of the English working man had
secured the permanence of a custom making ten hours a day's work.
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