established as part of the liberties of the English merchant or trader
that he should still have a property in his wreck; and then the
question came up as to what was a wreck. It was generally admitted
that when all hands were lost, that was a wreck; but they wanted to
get as narrow a definition as they could, so they got Parliament to
establish this law, that in future nothing shall be considered a wreck
out of which a cat or a dog escapes alive; and from that time until
the present day no vessel coasts about England without carrying a cat
or dog.

But the great achievements of legislation up to 1300 remain the
re-establishment of English law, as shown in the great charters of
John, Henry III, and the confirmation of Edward I. And Magna Charta
had to be read once a year (like our Declaration of Independence),
and for breach of it a king might be excommunicated; and Henry III
himself, according to Cobbet, feared that the Archbishop of Canterbury
was about to do so.




IV

EARLY LABOR LEGISLATION, AND LAWS AGAINST TRUSTS


(1275) Far the most important phrase to us found in the Statute of
Westminster I, save perhaps that common right should be done to rich
and poor, is to be found in this sentence: "Excessive toll, contrary
to the common custom of the realm," is forbidden. The statute applies