Only one refuge remained for the oppressed workmen--the inn, which for centuries was to be the place where he could hold these more or less illegal meetings with his comrades. In the houses of call for artisans, the workers discussed their grievances, hatched conspiracies and strikes, or devised less drastic methods for the betterment of their condition. At Kidderminster there is an inn called _The Holy Blaise_, after the patron of weavers; another, _Bishop Blaise_, exists in the heart of the City of London in New Inn Yard. The _Boar’s Head_, by the way, was a commonly accepted emblem of St. Blaise. Many _St. Crispins_ or _Jolly Crispins_ survive to represent the shoemaker. St. Hugh was another patron of the shoe trade, and there was once a _St. Hugh’s Bones_ in Clare Market. _Simon the Tanner_ is an old house in Long Lane, Bermondsey. A later age absurdly re-named inns frequented by the labouring class as _The Weavers’ Arms_, _Carpenters’ Arms_, _Bricklayers’ Arms_, etc., etc. These inns, a common occurrence in every large town, are often of old foundation, and incidentally commemorate the fact that in the public-house it was that the wage-earners first learnt the art of combination for their own betterment. Here the earliest trade unions found a welcome and a home, with which many of their successors are still content. The club room at the inn was the cradle of the Friendly Societies. The Freemasons have given name to a whole series of taverns. All the numerous and generally well managed benefit Societies on the pattern of the Foresters, Hearts of Oak and Oddfellows owe their very existence to the public-house. [Illustration: Bricklayers’ Arms, Caxton] It was anciently the custom for workmen to be paid at the nearest inn, and out of this, during the bad period at the beginning of the nineteenth century grew a very serious abuse. Those to whom was entrusted the duty of engaging and paying various forms of precarious and unskilled labour, such as coal whippers and porters, found it profitable to become owners of public-houses where the unfortunate men were kept waiting for a job which was generally awarded to the individual whose score was the largest. When the men returned from their work they were expected to spend a considerable portion of their earnings for the good of the house. The Truck Act of 1843 put an end to this heartless scandal. [Illustration: Golden Fleece, South Weald] The _Woolpack_ and _Fleece_ were, of course, the signs of inns frequented by the merchants who came to buy wool. At Guildford all the alehouses were at one time required to exhibit a Woolpack as a token of the leading commodity in the town. There is a very fine old _Golden Fleece Inn_ at South Weald in Essex, broad-fronted and roomy, Jacobean in style, but fallen sadly from its old estate since the coach traffic ceased on the Ipswich road.