..hardly an house
standing out of a speaking distance from another .... We could
see at every house a tenter, and on almost every tenter a piece
of cloth or kersie or shalloon .... At every considerable
house was a manufactory .... Every clothier keeps one horse,
at least, to carry his manufactures to the market and every one
generally keeps a cow or two or more for his family. By this
means the small pieces of inclosed land about each house are
occupied, for they scarce sow corn enough to feed their poultry
....
The houses are full of lusty fellows, some at the dye vat,
some at the looms, others dressing the clothes; the women or
children carding or spinning, being all employed, from the
youngest to the oldest."
But more significant than these changes was the rise of the
so-called mercantile system, in which the state took under its
care industrial details that were formerly regulated by the town
or guild. This system, beginning in the sixteenth century and
lasting through the eighteenth, had for its prime object the
upbuilding of national trade. The state, in order to insure the
homogeneous development of trade and industry, dictated the
prices of commodities. It prescribed the laws of apprenticeship
and the rules of master and servant. It provided inspectors for
passing on the quality of goods offered for sale. It weighed the
loaves, measured the cloth, and tested the silverware. It
prescribed wages, rural and urban, and bade the local justice act
as a sort of guardian over the laborers in his district.
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