courts, except that the justices themselves in a case of such disorder by more than forty persons are to certify the names of the offenders to the king and his council (that is to say, the Star Chamber) for punishment.  In 1495 the wages of servants in husbandry and of artificers and shipwrights, master-masons and carpenters are again fixed, with the hours of work and meal time provided; in March, from 5 a.m. till 7 or 8 p.m., but with half an hour for breakfast, an hour and a half for dinner, and half an hour for supper, and in winter time from dawn till sunset, and “said Artificers and Laborers shall slepe not by day” except between May and August; but this whole act “for the common wealth of the poor artificers” is repealed the following year.

[Footnote 1:  This court, says Lord Coke, was originally established to protect subjects against the offences and oppressions of great men by extortion, frauds, riots, unlawful assemblies, etc., leaving ordinary offences to the courts of common law, and Clarendon adds that “whilst it was gravely and moderately governed, it was an excellent expedient to preserve the peace and security of the kingdom.”  Nevertheless, “having become odious by a tyrannical exercise of its powers, it was abolished by a Statute of 16 Charles I.”]

(1503) This year there is another important statute against private and illegal by-laws, reciting that “companies corporate by color of rule and governance to them granted and confirmed by charters and letters patent of divers Kings made among themselves many unlawful and unreasonable ordinances as well in price of wares as other things for their own singular profit and to the common hurt and damage of the people,” and such by-laws are forbidden unless specially authorized by some official such as the chief governor of the city.  The law so far dates from the 15th of Henry VI; but the present act goes on to provide that “no masters, fellowships of crafts or rulers of guilds or fraternities make any acts or ordinances against the common profit of the people but with the examination and approval of the Chancellor and Chief Justice of England, and that there shall never be any by-law to restrain any person from suits in the common-law courts.”  A Federal statute similar to this was proposed by a late president to apply to all corporations, or at least to all corporations conducting interstate commerce; the approval of their by-laws or other contracts to be by the Federal commissioner of corporations; while the last section forbidding trades-unions to deny to their members the right of suing them or other persons in the ordinary courts is part of our constitutional law to-day and much objected to by the unions themselves, as it was in the time of Henry VII The tendency to create special courts (commerce, patents, etc.) seems to be beginning anew, despite the malign history of the ancient courts of the Constable and Marshal, Star Chamber, Requests, Royal Commissions, etc.