100 
also considerably from one part of the year to another. The 
averages which are given in books are found by adding the prices 
at Lady Day and at Michaelmas. It being such a changeable 
commodity, no fair inference, for comparison of its then price with 
its present price, can be made from the occasional entries in this 
book: but it is rather remarkable, and shows I should think the 
addition which cost of carriage made to the price of an article in 
former times, that while wheat in Lincolnshire was selling at 
26/8 the quarter, it cost in the Gawthorpe accounts 2/6 a peck 
or at the rate of 80/- a quarter. This is actually the price in 
those accounts through several years, and contrasts unfavourably 
with the modern prices of 45/- to 50/. Still more remarkable are 
the variations in the price of wool; from being in 1581 at Gaw- 
thorpe 20/- or 22/- a tod (of 18 stones) it rose in 16 years to 
163/4, and in 1604 it was 97/6. In Lincolnshire in 1603 it was 
26/8. These instances are sufficient to show the great differences 
which existed in the cost of articles according to the place, and 
how things are completely changed by the improved means of 
communication. I consider that this book we have before us is 
valuable for the means it supplies of adding to the evidence of 
costs in a special part of the country. The question of com- 
parative prices is one on which there are disputes, and a book 
that throws some light from original sources on the subject 
deserves special attention. It is well, too, for every one to have 
some general ideas at any rate touching this point, for such 
knowledge is necessary if we wish to point out how the ordinary 
citizen of the present day stands when contrasted with his 
representatives 300 years ago in the particulars of wages, and 
purchasing power of wages. Serious mistakes are made by men 
who have not enquired into the subject. Froude, in the opening 
chapter of his history, enters upon a careful cousideration of the 
position of the labouring classes with regard to means of subsist- 
ence. I think it is difficult to resist his conclusions, that when 
the wages of masons, bricklayers, joiners, &c., were 54d. a day, 
and beef was 3d. a pound, mutton 3d., a chicken a penny, the 
working-man was, even though wheat might be 6/8 a quarter, 
able to purchase more commodities than one can now. He was in 
other words able to buy for a week’s wages, 66lbs. of beef or 44 
of mutton, or 83 chickens, or half-a-quarter of wheat. The last 
he would certainly be able to do now, but I doubt his ability to 
compass the others. The farm labourer earned less, probably 
about 40lbs. of beef. I prefer to give the comparison in beef, for 
that was no doubt the general food in the early Tudor period ;_ but 
whatever may have been the relative advantage of the working 
man then, I conceive the case was entirely changed when we 
come to the period of which our M§. treats. The price of com- 
modities seems in eyery case to have doubled at the very least ; 
