‘All workmen or artisans who carry on their trade in foreign countries shall be ordered to come back; should they disobey, the members of their families shall be imprisoned, and if they then return, they shall be freely pardoned and again employed in Venice. But if any of them persist in living abroad, messengers shall be sent to kill them, and when they are dead their relations shall be let out of prison.’ The glass-blowers who were to be murdered were men, but the lace-makers were women, and the decree, which was made about 1673, is a fine instance of Venetian business principles, since the killing of men and women by assassination was a measure introduced solely for the protection of trade. Coloured bobbin lace was also made in Venice, with dyed silk thread and threads of gold, in the fifteenth century, and Richard III. of England desired his queen to wear it on her cloak at their coronation in 1483. The modern Burano lace was first made after the [Illustration: THE PALACES] end of the Republic, and is almost the only sort which is now manufactured in any quantity. Some of the finer points are imitated, it is true, and are vastly advertised, advertisement having taken the place of assassination in business methods as a means of creating a fictitious monopoly; but in spite of some really good pieces of needlework wrought with great care--as advertisements--the mass of the work turned out is of a cheap and commercial character. The policy of Venice with regard to her manufactures was one of protection, as has been seen, and the result was on the whole very satisfactory to the people as well as to the great merchants. Very heavy duties were levied on almost all imported articles, and among the very few excepted were the silk fabrics from Florence known by the name of ‘ormesini.’ This material was in such common use in Venice that the local silk weavers could not meet the demand for it. One of the reasons why the working people of Venice were always satisfied was that they were almost always prosperous; the price of labour was high, while that of necessities was relatively low, and the people accordingly lived in comfort without excessively hard work. On the other hand, some of them were always extravagant, as some of the nobles were, and some were unfortunate; and though there was no pauperism, there were many families of hopelessly poor persons. In a measure the hospitals, hospices, and orphan asylums provided for those in want, but in Venice, as in modern cities, the candidates for charity were always just a little more numerous than the shares into which charity could divide herself.