These experiments were discontinued, partly because they were discountenanced by the Government, which considered the factory system rendered the wage-earners too dependent on the clothiers; and also because the collection of large numbers of workpeople under one roof provided them with the opportunity for combination and insubordination.[189] Moreover the factory system was not really advantageous to the manufacturer before the introduction of power, because he could pay lower wages to the women who worked at home than to those who left their families in order to work on his premises. Thus the practice was dropped. In 1603 the Wiltshire Quarter Sessions published regulations to the effect that “Noe Clotheman shall keepe above one lombe in his house, neither any weaver that hath a ploughland shall keepe more than one lombe in his house. Noe person or persons shall keepe any lombe or lombs goeinge in any other house or houses beside their owne, or mayntayne any to doe the same.”[190] Footnote 189: See _Weavers’ Act_, 1555. Footnote 190: _Hist. MSS. Com. Var. Coll._, Vol. I., p. 75, _Wilts. Q.S. Rec._, 1603. Few references occur to the wives of successful clothiers or wool-merchants who were actively interested in their husband’s business, though no doubt their help was often enlisted in the smaller or more struggling concerns. Thus the names of three widows are given in a list of eleven persons who were using handicrafts at Maidstone. “The better sorte of these we take to bee but of meane ability and most of them poore but by theire trade the poore both of the towne and country adjoyning are ymploied to spynnyng.”[191] Footnote 191: _S.P.D._, cxxix, 45, Ap. 10, 1622, _Return of the Mayor_. A pamphlet published in 1692 describes how in former days “the Clothier that made the cloth, sold it to the merchant, and heard the faults of his own cloth; and forc’d sometimes not only to promise amendment himself, but to go home and tell _Joan_, to have the Wool better pick’d, and the Yarn better spun.”[192] Footnote 192: _Clothier’s Complaint, etc._, p. 7, 1692. A certain Rachel Thiery applied for a monopoly in Southampton for the pressing of serges, and having heard that the suit had been referred by the Queen to Sir J. Cæsar, the Mayor and Aldermen wrote, July 2, 1599, to let him know how inconvenient the granting of the suit would be to the town of Southampton. I. Those strangers who have presses already would be ruined. II. Many of their men servants (English and strangers) bred up to the trade would be idle.