As the Company commonly called 'the United Company of Mercers, Grocers, Ironmongers, and Goldsmiths' in this town have established the validity of their ancient customs by a suit at law of which there is no account of their having done so since the time when the King's Court for the Marches of Wales was held at Ludlow; at which time and place the Council then, who held the pleas, determined also a like suit in their favour: and as there is much argument for and against the existence and usage of this incorporate body; permit me to lay before the public an outline of both, that the subject at least might be better understood than we often hear it repeated. It is contended against, as exercising an arbitrary monopoly of trade, to the detriment and oppression of the subjects of the realm; and which is moreover injurious to the town itself, by depriving the Trade thereof of that competition which brings down the Articles of manufacture to a fair marketable value for the supply of its inhabitants. These are the charges against them, which if indeed they could be substantiated would be sufficient to show that their existence was an evil. But let us look at the facts on the other side of the question, and see whether there is any reality in these serious charges. In the first place the Companies hold it requisite, in order to be free of their body, that all but the sons of Freemen shall serve a regular apprenticeship to one of the Corporation. Now in this they have been sanctioned and dictated to by the ancient law of the land ... that youths might be properly taught their respective arts, and that the community might not be imposed upon by pretenders to that which they were not properly acquainted with. On Foreigners or such as have not served a regular apprenticeship they impose a fine of L20, before they will admit them as freemen, and certainly in doing this they do not over-rate a seven years' servitude, when the one is made equivalent to the other.