The London Bridewell was destined to be the forerunner of so many Bridewells or Houses of Correction that it is perhaps interesting to examine more closely the rules for its management. Any two of its governors had power to take into the house persons presented to them as "lewd and idle." They had also power to search all places in which masterless men were likely to be found, and to punish landlords or tenants who harboured them. The governors of the whole establishment were subdivided so that some might overlook every department. The rules with regard to the cloth-making establishment will illustrate the kind of supervision they were to exercise. They were first to make an inventory of the raw material and of the looms and other necessary implements. They were then to see that the clothier knew his business, and to order him to return a monthly account of the number of cloths which had been wrought. They were, moreover, to overlook the wool house, yarn house and spinning house and "to comptroll and rebuke" as they "shall see cause." They were to pay the workpeople, the weavers for weaving, the fullers for thicking and the spinners for spinning. The steward was to be allowed to charge for the diet of those that were employed. Every week they were to make a summary of their doings and every month a summary of their accounts. Other crafts were supervised in the same manner; the nail house was in close connection with the Company of Ironmongers, probably in order to carry out the undertaking that the occupations "should be profitable to all the King's subjects and hurtful to none." The Ironmongers were to give "to this house, as the people of the same may reasonably live"; they were to have the preference with regard to the sale of the manufactured goods and to be allowed a month in which to make payment. The worst vagrants were apparently sent to the mill and the bakehouse, but men who were fit for better employment were not to stay there. If the governors, we are told, shall "find any there above the ordinary, then shall ye cause the same to be known to the clerk of the work and see he bestow them in some other exercise." Bridewell does not seem to have effectually reformed the vagrants, for the governors were to "see to the good order of the said mills, that neither the vagabonds do use shameless craving nor begging to the great grief of good men and slander of the house, neither that they obstinately and frowardly shall deny their aid and help towards the lifting up and taking down of such grain as shall be brought into the said mill[74]." [74] T. Bowen. _Extracts from the Records and Court Books of Bridewell_, Appendix, II., p. 11 _seq._ The whole of the particular regulations relating to Bridewell are here printed.