Presently, having served for three years, and being now nineteen years of age, he complained to his father:— “But I was little the better for it; for no sooner was I come into my Master’s House, but he seeing me, enters his Closet, from whence fetches a lusty Battoon Cane (the ordinary Weapon with which I was used to be disciplined), and without by your leave, or with your Leave, he takes me by the hand, and lifting up his Sword Arm like a Fencer, he gives me a lusty Thwack over the Shoulders, and without any warning given, not so much as the least word of Defyance, that I might know his anger, or the cause of it, he follows that blow by a second and a third, and many more, so fast and so long as he could lay on, till he, being out of breath, was forced to give over, and then so soon as he had recovered the use of his Tongue, he thus breaks silence, ‘Sirrah, I’le teach you to run and make complaints to your Father.’ I now having heard him speak, knew whereabouts he was, but methought the News was strange and sudden, and somewhat I began to mutter, but my Tale would not be heard; he prosecuted his business with the Second Part to the same Tune, both upon my Sides and Shoulders till he was again weary, and then there being a cessation of Arms, down I sate me, not daring to speak a word; but though I said nothing, yet I paid it with thinking, but all to little purpose; he was Master, and I found so he would continue” (_The Unlucky Citizen_, pp. 43, 44). A master at that time had a perfect right to beat his servants; nor does the writer complain, except that there was, perhaps, too much laid on. It will be remembered that the wife of Pepys caned her maids. F. K., however, does point out the vile treatment of apprentices by some of their masters, and their advantage in it:— “And let me tell you that I have observed and known that some Citizens have much encreased their Estates by taking many Apprentices, for perhaps having fifty pounds or more with an Apprentice, and being very severe and rigid, the boy hath been so hardly used, that he hath run away within a year, and rather than return again, lose all his Money. I knew one that served eight so, one after another, and in three or four years, by this means, gained four hundred pounds for their diet, which they likewise earned, causing them to work like Porters, so that I think they paid dear enough for it; they had been better to have been boarded at the costliest Boarding-school in England; and besides the loss of the Money, there was a worse inconvenience, for the Apprentice hath been quite spoiled, so harassed and frighted, that he hath not been fit for any other service, and for the sake of his first Master, would not be perswaded to go to any other” (_The Unlucky Citizen_, pp. 144, 145).