ON THE PRICE OF LABOUR. 301 



We learn from contemporary accounts that population 

 speedily righted itself. A void made by interruptions in the 

 course of events is rapidly filled. That void only is perma- 

 nent which is created by tyranny and misgovernment. After 

 the great loss endured by the French population due to the 

 waste of life in the continental wars, a great increase in the 

 numbers of the people took place. We are told that after 

 the Plague, double and triple births were frequent, that most 

 marriages were fertile, and that no serious effects were pro- 

 duced in a short time on the numbers of the ^people. The 

 physiologists of the age however, while they admitted the 

 numerical increase, averred that the human race suffered a 

 permanent diminution in the number of teeth always possessed 

 by persons who had been born before the visitation of the 

 Black Death. 



The subjoined tables are divided into five sets. 



The first gives the highest prices paid for threshing a quarter 

 of wheat, barley, and oats. 



I. Five districts are taken : (i) the eastern, comprising 

 Lincolnshire, Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, Kent ; (2) the midland, 

 Oxford, Bucks, Rutland, Northampton, Cambridge, Hunts, 

 Beds, Middlesex, Herts, Leicester; (3) the southern, Hants, 

 Surrey, Sussex, Dorset, Wilts, Berks ; (4) the western, Glou- 

 cester, Hereford, Somerset, Warwick, Worcester, Devon, 

 South Wales ; (5) the northern, York, Notts, Cheshire, Cum- 

 berland, Durham, Derby, Salop, North Wales. 



II. The table is one of averages. The first six columns 

 contain the cost of reaping an acre of (i) wheat, (2) barley, 

 (3) drage, (4) oats, (5) rye, (6) beans, peas, and vetches. The 

 seventh column contains the rate paid for mowing an acre 

 of grass : the sign * implying that making is included. The 

 eighth column supplies evidence of the rate paid for the 

 thatcher by the day : the ninth for his help or assistant : the 

 tenth for both kinds of labour taken together. 



