512 ON THE PRICE OF LABOUR. 



washing of a pair of sheets costs id. The contract is that the 

 men should have feather beds, each bed being occupied by two 

 persons. Occasionally an allowance of 6d. per diem was made for 

 food, and the labourer was then left to find his own provision. 



Piece-work is not common. But forging iron is paid at 

 gs. 4d. a cwt., i. e. at id. a pound. Sawing at is. *]d. and is. 8d. 

 the hundred, hewing timber at is. zd. the ton, laying tiles at 

 2s. 4d. and zs. 8d. the thousand, painting at is. 4d. white, 

 is. 8d. green, and zs. red, the yard, laying slates at 8s. the 

 thousand. These prices are low, and bear out what has been 

 said so many times as to the scanty rise of wages in com- 

 parison with the great and general rise of other prices. 



The names of artisans in Elizabeth's time are even more 

 numerous than those in her father's. It may be noted that 

 apprentices appear far more frequently and are associated with 

 various artisans. They do not earn much less than their 

 masters, who of course appropriated the wages paid to them. 

 The clerks are not paid better proportionately than they were 

 thirty years before. The gong-fermer disappears in the more 

 refined name of the mazar scourer. 



In Vol. Ill, pp. 660-663, a few instances are given of the 

 wages paid to domestic servants. The money wages received 

 by such persons do not rise at all. I have added to the list an 

 account of the payment made to officers employed in the navy 

 in 1547. The captain is paid at the rate of 91 $s. the year, 

 the lieutenant at 36 ios. The captain of a smaller vessel is 

 paid 24 7s., the porters and master gunners 12 $s. 4^., the 

 ordinary gunners 9 zs. 6d. These persons were of course 

 fed as well as lodged, and were infinitely better paid than any 

 other persons, and far more highly than they are, relatively 

 speaking, now. 



In the subjoined tables, the first column in the annual series 

 is that of the carpenter's wages, at the highest rate per day, the 

 second the average payment of the same artisan, the third the 

 wages of the mason, the fourth of the mason's labourer, the 

 fifth and sixth of sawyers by the couple and by the hundred (c) 



