"
For carrying into effect these provisions, it would be necessary to have
certain days, and a fixed place set apart for the hiring of servants. In
the former particular, no days would be so convenient as feast days:
they were well known, and were days commonly computed from; they were,
besides, holidays, and days for which labourers were forbidden to
receive wages (_see_ 34 Edw. III. c. 10. and 4 Henry IV. c. 14.); so
that, although absent from labour, they would lose no part of the scanty
pittances allowed them by act of parliament or settled by justices. As
to the latter requirement, no place was so public, or would so naturally
suggest itself, or be so appropriate, as the market-place.
Thus arose in our own land the custom respecting which W.J. makes
inquiry, and also our statute fairs, or statutes; thus called on account
of their reference to the various "Statutes of Labourers." I was not
aware that any usage to hire on all festivals (for to such, I take it,
your correspondent refers) still existed in England.
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