freemen of London.

2. That none be taken in under seven years old.

3. That none be taken in but orphans, wanting either father or
mother, or both.

4. That no foundlings, or that are maintained at the parish charge,
be taken in.

5. That none who are lame, crooked, or deformed, or that have the
evil, rupture, or any infectious disease, be taken in.

6. That none be admitted but such as are without any probable means
of being provided for otherways; nor without a due certificate from
the minister, churchwardens, and three or four of the principal
inhabitants of the parish whence any children come, certifying the
poverty and inability of the parent to maintain such children, and
the true age of the said child, and engaging to discharge the
hospital of them before or after the age of fifteen years if a boy,
or fourteen years if a girl, which shall be left to the governor's
pleasure to do; so that it shall be wholly in the power of the
hospital to dispose of such child, or return them to the parent or
parish, as to the hospital shall seem good.

7. That no child be admitted that hath a brother or sister in the
hospital already.

8. To the end that no children be admitted contrary to the rules
abovesaid, when the general court shall direct the taking in of any