There is thus abundant evidence concerning the decay of trade. Cunningham speaks of the decay of the craft gilds and their mismanagement. This may be considered a part of the general decay and a consequence. At first, the craft gilds exercised police control over their members and so secured good order; the old authority and power of the alderman in his ward had been practically taken over by the gilds; each master had his apprentices living with him and forming part of his own household. Yet the apprentices made the riot in 1517 long remembered as Evil May Day. Another of their objects was the production of honest and good work. Yet in 1437 and again in 1503 it was enacted that no ruler of gilds or fraternities should make any ordinances which were not approved by the Chancellor of the Justices of Assize. The third object was the securing of fair conditions for those who worked in the trade. Yet consider the grievances of the journeymen in 1536:— “Previous Acts relating to craft abuses are recited and the statute proceeds: ‘Sithen which several acts established and made, divers masters, wardens and fellowships of crafts, have by cautel and subtle means practised and compassed to defraud and delude the said good and wholesome statutes, causing divers apprentices or young men immediately after their years be expired, or that they be made free of their occupation or fellowship, to be sworn upon their holy Evangelist at their first entry, that they nor any of them after their years or term expired shall not set up, nor open any shop, house, nor cellar, nor occupy as freeman without the assent and license of the master, wardens or fellowship of their occupations, upon pain of forfeiting their freedom or other like penalty; by reason whereof the said ’prentices and journeymen be put to as much or more charges thereby than they beforetime were put unto for the obtaining and entering of their freedom, to the great hurt and impoverishment of the said ’prentices and journeymen and other their friends.’ Such restrictions naturally resulted in the withdrawal of the journeymen to set up shops in suburbs or villages where the gild had no jurisdiction; and from this they were not precluded, in all probability, by the terms of their oath. This might often be their only chance of getting employment, as the masters were apparently inclined to overstock their shops with apprentices, rather than be at the expense of retaining a full proportion of journeymen.” (_The Growth of English Industry._) [Illustration: