10 THK EARLY TASMANIAX PKES3, ETC. 



price. Farmers away inland generally made purchases in 

 large quantities, receiving credit on the security of the nexfc 

 harvest, with the result that some of them smoked and 

 drank away their whole crop before it was harvested. Even 

 passage money was occasionally paid in produce, and one 

 often'encounters notices like the following: — '"'It being the 

 intention of Captain Dixon to touch at Rio dc Janiero, 

 wheat will be taken for payment of passage money either to 

 Rio or to England" (19). 



To the housewife many interesting statements as to 

 the prices of commodities are scattered up and down the 

 f3arly numbers of the Gazette. The prices of imported 

 articles, especially those on which duties were imposed, 

 were high. Tea ranged from 8s. to 15s. a pound, sugar Is. 

 per lb. Tobacco was obtainable at 6s. to 12s. per lb., whilst 

 rum stood at 20s. a gallon, and one gallon of rum passed 

 for currency in many parts as equivalent to £1 sterling. 

 Fresh butter cost 5s. per lb. The housewife's chief trouble 

 lay in the price of bread. The price was fixed by assize; 

 this assize was supposed to be revised weekly (20), in ac- 

 cordance with the prevailing price of wheat or floui*, but 

 such revision was not done at all effectively. Hence, even 

 in times when wheat was cheap, the price of the loaf re- 

 mained high. This discrepancy drew forth the following 

 editorial protest in the Gazette of June 11, 1824: — "The 

 glaring disproportion between what our bakers pay for 

 their wheat and what we have to pay for our bread at 

 length compels even us to mumiur. Surely our worthy 

 magistrates will deign to interfere, and in their equity to 

 modify the assize, that those who lean on the staff of life 

 as well as those who prepare it may find support." 



The above picturs is that presented to us by the 

 Gazette during the first eight years of its life. Those yeai-s 

 had comprised a momentous period in the history of the 

 journal. Week after week it had been issued regularly, 

 slowly extending its circulation. There had been many 

 difficulties to overcome. The first was that of type. The 

 supply available when Bent began was very small, and if 

 by anv chance a special demand was made for a large sup- 

 ply of one particular letter, difficulties arose. Bent w^as 

 short of small "as." Therefore, he had to use italics, 

 capitals, and ordinary letters indifferently, producing a 

 very strange effect on the printed page, as for instance, in 

 the third issue, where the words "pAyment" and "severAl" 

 occur. Again, his supply of capitals was small ; hence 

 when he had to set up a number of short Government 

 notices, the capitals were exhausted long before the head- 

 ing of the last notice was reached, and "government house. 



