By the 27th Hen. VIII., further provisions were made for the labour and employment of vagabonds and beggars. Churchwardens to gather alms for supporting the poor on Sundays and holidays. Begging children, between the ages of five and fourteen years, to be placed under masters of husbandry; and those between the ages of twelve and sixteen to be whipped for running away. Beggars offending again after the first punishment, to be marked by cutting off the upper gristle of the right ear; and if found still loitering in idleness, to be indicted as felons at the quarter sessions, and on conviction to suffer death. The mendicant friars are specially excepted in this act, which provides many additional supports for the poor besides the vast donations from the still existing monasteries, and the almshouses and hospitals. At the commencement of the reign of Edw. VI., a most severe and extraordinary statute was made for the punishment of vagabonds and relief of poor persons. It does not appear who were the contrivers of this instrument, the preamble and general spirit of which were more in accordance with the tyrannical and arbitrary measures of the preceding reign, than with the mild and merciful character of the infant sovereign, who is well known to have taken a very active part in the affairs of government. It repeals all the former statutes on this subject, and enacts, that if any beggar or other person, not being lame or impotent, and after loitering or idly wandering for the space of three days or more, shall not offer himself to labour, or being engaged in any person's service shall run away or leave his work, it shall be lawful for the master to carry him before a justice of peace, who, on proof of the offence, shall cause the party to be marked with a hot iron with the letter V on the breast, and adjudge him to be his master's slave for the space of two years, who shall feed him "on bread and water, or, at his discretion, on refuse of meat, and cause the said slave to work, by beating, chaining, or otherwise, in such work or labour (how vile soever it be) as he shall put him unto." If the slave should run away, or absent himself for a fortnight without leave, the master may pursue and punish him by chaining or beating, and have his action of damage against any one who shall harbour or detain him. On proof before the justice of the slave's escape, he is to be sentenced to be marked on the forehead or ball of the cheek with a hot iron with the letter S, and adjudged to be his master's slave for ever; and for the second offence of running away, he is to be regarded as a felon and suffer death. The children of beggars to be taken from them, and, with other vagrant children, to be apprenticed by the magistrate to whoever will take them; and if such children so apprenticed run away, they are to be retaken, and become slaves till the age of twenty in females, and twenty-four in males, and punishment by chains, &c., and power to the