As was but natural, oppression and robbery had not been confined to the priestly and official classes, but were practised with impunity by the more powerful and lawless sections of the population, with the result that no man's property was safe. In the old days if a man purchased a sheep and it was a good one, he ran the risk of having it stolen or confiscated. If he built himself a fish-pond, his fish were taken and he had no redress. If he sunk a well in high ground beyond the area served by the irrigation-canals, he had no security that his labour would be for his own benefit. This state of things Urukagina changed, both by putting an end to the extortions of officials and by imposing drastic penalties for theft. At the same time, he sought to protect by law the humbler classes of his subjects from oppression by their wealthier and more powerful neighbours. Thus he enacted that if a good ass was foaled in the stable of any subject of the king, and his superior should wish to buy it, he should only do so by paying a fair price; and if the owner refused to part with it, his superior must not molest him. Similarly, if the house of a great man lay beside that of a humbler subject of the king and he wished to buy it, he must pay a fair price; and if the owner was unwilling to sell it, he should have perfect liberty to refuse without any risk to himself. The same desire to lessen the hardships of the poorer classes is apparent in other reforms of Urukagina, by which he modified the more barbarous customs of earlier days. One instance of such a reform appears to apply to the _corvée_, or some kindred institution; when engaged in a form of forced labour, it had not been the custom to supply the workers with water for drinking, nor even to allow them to fetch it for themselves--a practice to which Urukagina put a stop.