42 THE FEPYS OF SOITTH DOkSEt. 



to buy his 5 blank tickets in ye million lottery at 5 55. per 

 ticket. . . with the accruing interest thereon of two years. 

 . . the said 5 ticketts so amounting to 26 55. Whereupon 

 to gratifie him I accepted of them accordingly." 



Our Pepys was not bald of dry humour ; here is a delicious 

 entry relating to an application for a loan made by his cousin, 

 Thomas Symes, of Came :" Sunday, 10 Oct., 1697. Tho. 

 Symes came hither to borrow 20 of me, but went away without 

 it." 



Interesting references occur to persons, businesses, and places 

 in the neighbourhood. We find that a watchmaker was in 

 business in Dorchester in 1698 : " Wednesday, 23 Feb., 1697-8. 

 How of Dorchr watchmaker was here and opened and cleansed 

 my pendulum clock and did something to my Jack." Another 

 watchmaker lived at Puddletown. The " Red Lyon " at 

 Wareham is mentioned. 



A word now as to wages and prices at the chief period 

 covered by the diary, viz., the close of the i-jth century The 

 problem of ascertaining the purchasing power of the currency at 

 different periods is, owing to the present entire change of cir- 

 cumstances, an extremely difficult one. In the diarist's day, 

 labour, rent, meat, butter, and eggs were much cheaper than 

 now ; on the other hand, bread, sugar, coffee, groceries, and 

 luxuries generally, as also travelling, were more costly. Prices, 

 also, varied greatly at different seasons of the year and in 

 different parts of the country ; the coinage, too, \vas debased. 

 In that marvellous work by Prof. Thorold Rogers, cited below,* 

 prices are given, but no attempt was made to institute 

 comparisons with prices at the date of publication. However, 

 taking everything into consideration, probably we shall not be 

 far wrong if we put the purchasing power of i of Mr. Richards' 



* "History of Agriculture and prices in England from the year after the 

 Oxford Parliament, 1259, to the commencement of the Continental War (1793), 

 compiled entirely from original and contemporaneous records by James E. 

 Thorold Rogers" : Oxford, at the Clarendon Press, 1887. It is to be noted that 

 W. Stanley Jevons' " Investigations" do not commence until 1782. 



