In the year 1455 it was enacted “that no person that in the County of Kent shall commonly brew any ale or beer to sell, shall make nor do to be made any malt in his house, or in any other place to his own use, at his costs and expences above an C quarters in the year, under penalty of x li., and this statute is to be in force for the space of 5 years.” This act appears to have been passed to protect the maltsters of other places from the competition of the Kentish men. An act was passed in 1496 “against vacabonds and beggars,” which directs two justices of the peace to “rejecte and put away comen ale-selling in townes and places where they shall think convenyent, and to take suertie of the keepers of ale-houses of their gode behavyng, by the discrecion of the seid justices, and in the same to be avysed and aggreed at the time of their sessions.” In 1531 brewers were forbidden to take more than such prices and rates as should be thought sufficient, at the discretion of the justices of the peace within every shire, or by the mayor and sheriffs in a city. By 5 and 6 Edward VI. c. 25, entitled “An Act for Keepers of Ale-houses to be bounde by Recognizances,” it is enacted that “forasmuch as intolerable hurts and troubles to the commonwealth do daily grow and increase through such abuses and disorders as are had and used in common ale-houses, the Justices of the Peace are authorized to close such houses at their discretion.” And we find later, in Elizabeth’s time, that Lord Keeper Egerton, in his charge to the judges when going on circuit, bade them ascertain, for the Queen’s information, how many ale-houses the justices of the peace had _pulled down_, so that the good justices might be rewarded and the evil removed. Surely the advocates for total suppression of the sale of alcoholic drinks were born some two or three centuries too late! A quaint jingle, entitled “Skelton’s Ghost,” which may be attributed to some post-Elizabethan rhymer, contains an allusion to the legal price of ale. {111} To all tapsters and tiplers, And all ale-house vitlers, Inne-keepers and cookes, That for pot-sale lookes, And will not give measure, But at your owne pleasure, Contrary to law, Scant measure will draw In pot and in canne, To cozen a man Of his full quart a penny, Of you there’s too many. For in King Harry’s time, When I made this rime Of Elynor Rumming, With her good ale tunning, Our pots were full quarted, We were not thus thwarted With froth canne and neck pot And such nimble quick shot, That a dowzen will score For twelve pints and no more. The views of a cozening hostess of the period are amusingly set forth in a quaint old ballad taken from the Roxburghe collection, a portion of which finds place on the following page.