CORN. DAIRY PRODUCE. WOOL, ETC. LABOUR. 719 



take the four sets together, (i) oxen, calves, and lambs; 

 (2) other produce, excluding swans and rabbits; (3) corn of 

 all kinds ; (4) the articles given in the last table, the general 

 average rise is represented by the decimal 2-71, the previous 

 prices being taken as unity. 



I now come to a set of prices which form a striking contrast 

 to those of the necessaries and secondary necessaries of sub- 

 sistence. The same analysis employed on the wages of day 

 labour gives the following results : 



The average derived from these eleven kinds of labour, 

 representing, in eight cases, artisans' wages, in three, those of 

 labourers in husbandry, is 1-60 ; and it will be obvious, without 

 further immediate comment, how seriously depressed the con- 

 dition of the working classes was, when contrasted with that 

 of the same classes during the fifteenth, and the first forty 

 years of the sixteenth century. 



We may now revert to other products. The figures of wax 

 by the dozen and hundredweight are respectively 6s. $d., 

 gs. id., 1-45; 52.?. 2\d., 75^. z\d., 1-44. The ratios are nearly 

 identical, but the change in the religious habits of the people 

 after the Reformation is sufficient to account for the decline 

 visible in the demand for this article, and consequently in its 

 price. 



Hops were, comparatively speaking, rarely used before 1540. 



