later, 1285, though the time of this, the Statute concerning Bakers, is put by some still earlier, with the Assize of Bread and Beer, in 1266. It provides the standard weight and price of bread, ale, and wine, the toll of a mill. It anticipates our pure-food laws and punishes butchers for selling unwholesome flesh or adulterating oatmeal, and says "that no Forestaller be suffered to dwell in any Town, which is an open Oppressor of Poor People ... which for Greediness of his private Gain doth prevent others in buying Grain, Fish, Herring, or any other Thing to be sold coming by land or Water, oppressing the Poor, and deceiving the Rich, which carrieth away such Things, intending to sell them more dear,... and an whole Town or a Country is deceived by such Craft and Subtilty," and the punishment is put at a fine at the first offence with the loss of the thing bought, the pillory for the second offence, fine and imprisonment for the third, and the fourth time banishment from the town. The first definition of forestalling is here given. Our modern equivalent is the buying of futures or dealing in stocks without intent to deliver, both of which have been forbidden or made criminal in many of our States. And forestalling, regrating, and engrossing were things early recognized as criminal in England, and these statutes embody much of what is sound in the present legislation against trusts. Forestalling was very apt to be done in a _staple_, that is, in the town which was specially devoted to that article of trade; so that the laws of forestalling got very much mixed up with the laws of the staple; but forestalling would equally mean going into any market and buying up all the production. If the article was produced abroad, the forestaller would try to buy up the entire importation.