A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE 



were to see duly held in every district on the i6th and 26th of October. To- 

 prevent servants from going from one ' statute ' to another and hiring them- 

 selves first to one person and then to another (which seems to have been a 

 common practice), the constables were to keep a list of the names of those hired 

 at the ' statutes.' Finally, persons under twenty years of age coming to be 

 hired were to enter their ages in the constable's book, and bring a certificate 

 of their birth with them. 229 



Such regulations suggest a constant attempt to evade the orders of the 

 justices, which is highly probable in view of the rates fixed. These improve 

 a little as the century goes on. In 1739 at Colston Basset, a dairymaid (a 

 skilled worker, the demand for whose skill grew with the increase of pasture) 

 received 6 IQJ. a year. 230 A gardener at the same place and the same time, 

 however, receives only 5 a year. Ordinary agricultural wages also advanced 

 slightly. In 1775 haymakers and harvesters received is. a day with board ; 

 ordinary winter wages sometimes rose to 8</. ; mowing varied from is. to- 

 i.f. 6d. ; and ditchers got is. a day. 



Improved as these wages were, they were still small at a period whei> 

 a labourer's cottage was rented at 1 5-r. a year without land, or 2$s. a year 

 with, whilst his firing seems to have cost him from 2os. to 30^. a year. 231 

 Fortunately the labourers' other expenses were probably low : butter between 

 1770 and 1780 seems to have been about bd. per lb., beef ^\d. to 4^., cheese 

 4.^., mutton 3^., candles 6;/. or b\d. ; while wheat, as has been shown, was 

 cheap. The improved condition of the agricultural labourers which these 

 figures suggest was however a development of the third quarter of the i8th 

 century ; and was perhaps partly a result of the general growth of trade and 

 industry which marked the preceding period. 



Coal-mining and the distribution of coal remained as before an impor- 

 tant factor of Nottinghamshire life. In 1751 coal was given as the most 

 important item among Nottinghamshire exports : 282 a local means of distri- 

 bution was by loaded asses, 234 as well as by coal carts, until the opening of 

 the canal from Chesterfield to Stockwith in 1774 diminished this traffic. 

 In 1795 a canal was opened at Sawley which passed through the mining 

 district of Wollaton. Curiously enough, this was followed after an interval 

 by a rise in the price of coal, a fact discouraging to water-traffic. 236 



Other articles which were exported from Nottinghamshire in 1751,. 

 chiefly by way of the Trent, were lead, timber, wool, corn, pottery, and 

 cheese from Cheshire and Warwickshire. 236 The trade in this last article 

 seems to have been important. It was a stage in the conveyance of the 

 produce of the west midlands to London : and considerable anxiety was- 

 aroused by a stoppage in the trade owing to serious riots in Nottinghamshire 

 in I766. 237 Nottinghamshire ale was also a staple export; Newark beer 

 being sent as far as Russia in I786. 238 



The general increase of trade in 1751 appears in the fact that Nottingham 

 tradesmen no longer laid in a stock of goods at Lenton Fair, but went to- 



'" Nott. SS. Rates and Proportions of Wages for Artificers, &c. (1724). ao Add. MSS. 22252.. 



* 31 A. Young, Northern Tour, i, 94101. nl Deering, Fetus Nottinghamia, 92. 



134 Add. MSS. 18552. " 5 J. Holland, Hut. ofWorkiof, 146-7 ru 



136 Deering, Fetus Nottinghamia, Sec. 5. 



"' 1766, Home Office Papers, no. 321. ** Blackner, Hut. of Notts. 137. 



296 



