THE COMMON WEAL.

GENERAL Far and away the largest number of bills put into the Parliament concerned themselves with the common weal for which, in the Queen's view, it was the proper function of members of either House to propose action of one kind and another. In principle, nothing that touched the inhabitants of the realm in their daily lives stood outside the reforming, restricting or promoting powers of the Parliament, and in practice this principle was pretty consistently obeyed. The range of topics touched upon is remarkable, even if a majority of bills failed to get through, and some things thought of might amaze; indeed, the range is too wide to be fully recited here without burdening attention well beyond what it should be asked to bear. Acts did not often result from the more extravagant moves, few of which look likely to have been initiated by the government, but that does not diminish the interest of some initiatives. One bill that did pass in 1563 completed the sixteenth-century code against gypsies which had been officially begun in 1531 and elaborated in 1554. These alien ‘vagabonds’ caused fear and hatred, and typically enough each act got more savage. That of Henry VIII had attacked them for thieving and proposed to expel them, while the next one made it felony to be a wandering Egyptian. The act of 1563 worried about the Englishmen who dressed as gypsies in order to pursue a life of crime and added them to the tally, providing only that any native-born person found in such company could not be expelled from the realm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]