In no one particular does the contrast between the present times and those of which we are treating appear more marked, or the progress of society more decided, than in the interference of the ruling powers of olden times with various descriptions of trades and occupations. There were the assizes or ordinances regulating the price of bread, ale, fuel, and other common necessaries of life; they clipped or expanded servants' and workmen's wages; prohibited or encouraged by bounties the growth of various articles of consumption; adjusted carriers' charges and the numbers of horses they might use up certain hills; permitted the sale of many things only by license; and otherwise sadly dammed up the current of human progression within their own narrow channel. As regards servants' wages, it would appear that the scale allowed early in the seventeenth century was far from illiberal, for in the year 1613 the authorities of Broadway petitioned "that servants' wages be rated according to the statute in that case, for we find it a great grievance in this county the unreasonableness of servants' wages, so that they have grown proud and idle." The rates for wages for servants and labourers fixed in 1663 were as follows: £. s. d. "A bailie of husbandrie by the yeare 4 0 0 A cheife hynde by the yeare 3 6 8 An ordinary husbandman 2 10 0 A laborer by the day without meat and drinke from the feast of All Saints untill Candlemas 0 0 7 And with meate and drinke 0 0 3 After Candlemas vntill harvest without meate and drinke 0 0 8 And with meate and drinke 0 0 4 A mower by the day without meate and drinke 0 1 0 And with meate and drinke 0 0 6 A reaper the like as a mower. A woman reaper without meate and drinke. 0 0 8 And with meat and drinke 0 0 4 Sawers by the hundred, without meate and drinke 0 2 4 With meate and drinke 0 1 2 A thatcher by the day without meate and drinke 0 1 0 And with meate and drinke 0 0 6 A carpenter by the day without meate and drinke 0 1 0 And with meate and drinke 0 0 6 A mason the like wages as a carpenter A laborer with a carpenter or a mason by the day without meate and drinke 0 0 10 A made servant, by the yeare 1 10 0 A dairy maide or cheife maide servant, by the yeare 2 0 0"