Pagina 320 de 2651

By a strict interpretation of the words, too, the operation of

this statute has been limited to those trades which were

established in England before the 5th of Elizabeth, and has never

been extended to such as have been introduced since that time.

This limitation has given occasion to several distinctions,

which, considered as rules of police, appear as foolish as can

well be imagined. It has been adjudged, for example, that a

coach-maker can neither himself make nor employ journeymen to

make his coach-wheels, but must buy them of a master

wheel-wright; this latter trade having been exercised in England

before the 5th of Elizabeth. But a wheel-wright, though he has

never served an apprenticeship to a coachmaker, may either

himself make or employ journeymen to make coaches; the trade of a

coachmaker not being within the statute, because not exercised in

England at the time when it was made.