Englishmen are proverbially interested in what they eat and drink, and this public concern for good victualling explains why, when life and property were as yet but moderately secure, safeguards against the adulteration of human food were notably complete. The chief legislative authority upon which police action, directed against dishonest purveyors, rested, was the "Judicium Pillorie," or, as it is commonly called, "The Statute of the Pillory and Tumbrel."[80] This Act belonged to the same period as the Statute of Winchester (both dating from the latter half of the thirteenth century), and like its more famous contemporary had a long career of practical usefulness in the public service. From 1266, the year of its enactment, until 1710, the date of its repeal, the Judicium Pillorie did much for English food, by maintaining a high standard in the quality of our meat and bread, and in the soundness of our ale. The Statute requires that "they have in the town a pillory of convenient strength as appertaineth to the liberty of their market, which they may use (if need be) without bodily peril either of man or woman." Provision is made for the sending of six "lawful men" to collect all the measures of the town, care being taken that the owner's name is legibly inscribed on each measure, "after which thing done" a jury of twelve lawful men have to make oath that they will truly answer concerning such things as may be demanded of them on the King's behalf, "and such things as be secret, they shall utter secretly and answer privately," also, "if any butcher do sell contagious flesh, or that died of the murren, or flesh that hath been kept so long that it loseth its natural wholesomeness, or meat bought from Jews and then sold to Christians"--for these and similar offences the penalty is the same, viz.: "If a baker or a brewer be convict ... then he shall suffer punishment of the body--that is to wit--a baker to the pillory and a brewer to the tumbrel." From "Liber Albus" we get a more detailed account of the fashion in which these exemplary punishments were carried out in London, we learn that "if any default be found in the bread of a baker in the city, the first time, let him be drawn upon a hurdle from the Guildhall to his own house through the great street where there be most people assembled, and through the great streets which are most dirty, with the faulty loaf hanging from his neck: if a second time he shall be found committing the same offence, let him be drawn from the Guildhall through the great street of Cheepe, in the manner aforesaid, to the pillory, and let him be put upon the pillory, and remain there at least one hour in the day; and the third time that such default shall be found, he shall be drawn, and the oven shall be pulled down, and the baker made to forswear the trade in the city for ever."