For theefes roge vp & down in euery corner, no place is free from them, no not y^e princes pallace, nor the country mans cotage. In the day time they practise pilfering, picking, open robbing, and priuy stealing, and what legerdemaine lacke they? not fearing the shamefull and horrible death of hanging. In causa est non curta res solum, sed vestis vitæque luxus atque fastus etiam, sed petulantia, sed otium & superbia Salaconum μεγαλοῤῥούντων, qui nihil aliud quàm ut equi insultare solo & gressus glomerare superbos, quàm gyro breviori flecti, qui nihil aliud quàm cevere, quàm otiosè mendicando accusata non merente corporis infirmitate spoliare. The cause of which inconuenience doth not onely issue from nipping neede & wringing want, for all y^t steale, are not pinched with pouerty, but som steale to maintaine their excessiue and prodigall expences in apparell, their lewdnes of lyfe, their hautines of hart, theyr wantonnes of maners, theyr wilfull ydlenes, their ambitious brauery, and the pryde of the sawcy _Salacones’_ μεγαλορρούντων vaine glorious and arrogant in behauiour, whose delight dependeth wholly to mount nimbly on horsebacke, to make them leape lustely, spring and praunce, galloppe and amble, to runne a race, to wynde in compasse, and so forthe, liuing all together vpon the fatnesse of the spoyle. Othersom therbe which steale, being thereto prouoked by penury & neede, like masterlesse mẽ applying themselues to no honest trade, but raunging vp and downe impudently begging, and complayning of bodily weakenesse where is no want of abilitie. [Valentinianus.] Sed his Valentinianus imperator benè prospexit, legibus latis, ut qui nullo corporis morbo laborantes, corporis infirmitatem desidiosi ignavique prætexentes, mendicarent, perpetui colono ei inservirent, qui eorum ignaviam proderet atque accusaret, ne eorum desidia onerosa populo, odiosave sit exemplo. But valiaunt _Valentine_ th’emperour, by holsome lawes prouided that suche as hauing no corporall sicknesse, solde themselues to begging, pleded pouerty wyth pretended infirmitie, & cloaked their ydle and slouthfull life with colourable shifts and cloudy cossening, should be a perpetuall slaue and drudge to him, by whom their impudent ydlenes was bewrayed, and layde against them in publique place, least the insufferable slouthfullnes of such vagabondes should be burthenous to the people, or being so hatefull and odious, should growe into an example. [Alfredi vigilantia.] Alfredus quoque regno administrando tanta vigilantia justitiaque usus est, ut si quis per vias publicas incedens, marsupium auro plenum vesperi perdidisset, manè, atque adeo post mensem unum, integrum & intactum inveniret, uti Ingulphus Croylandensis in historia refert.