What does this law mean? price regulation in conneticut 1676? Whereas a great cry of oppression is heard among us, and that principally pointed at workmen and traders, which is hard to regulate without a standard for pay, it is therefore ordered that . . . [prices and wages] be duly set at each of our General Courts annually, . . . [A]ll breaches of this order to be punished proportionable to the value of the oppression. . . . This court . . . in the interim recommends [that] all tradesmen and laborers consider the religious end of their callings, which is that receiving such moderate profit as may enable them to serve God and their neighbors with their arts and trades comfortably, they do not enrich themselves suddenly and inordinately (by oppressing prices and wages to the impoverishing [of] their neighbors. . .. live in the practice of that crying sin of oppression, but avoid it.