ON THE PRICE OF STOCK AND MEAT. 331 



for only a brief period. It is probable that the duty which 

 previously devolved on the College bursar is transferred to 

 some inferior official. 



But at or about the time in which the Eton account ceases 

 to supply the requisite information, the surviving accounts of 

 \Yinchester fill the void, with the addition of the number of 

 oxen bought, and the number of pounds of beef which they 

 yielded. Hence the Winchester records inform us as to the 

 weight of the ox ordinarily purchased and consumed by a 

 great corporation. I imagine that these weights are of the 

 dressed carcass, and that if we are to calculate the live weight, 

 we must add three-sevenths to the recorded weight, on the 

 principle adopted in London markets and others near Lon- 

 don, of reckoning eight pounds to the stone of meat, the other 

 six being skin, horns, and oflfal. Thus the average weight of 

 the Winchester and other oxen for the forty-five years in 

 which they are registered is 588 Ibs. If I am right in this 

 interpretation, the average live weight of the Winchester ox 

 is a little under 836 Ibs. 



Occasionally the Winchester account omits the weight in 

 pounds, and gives only the number of the oxen bought and 

 the price per head. This is the case in 1665. Sometimes it 

 leaves out the number of the oxen, and gives only the weight 

 of the beef purchased. At last, in 1689, it adopts the practice 

 of giving the weight only and the price by the hundredweight. 

 But the register of the forty-three years is sufficient to illus- 

 trate what was the ordinary size of cattle consumed in a large 

 and wealthy establishment. Now in vol. iv, p. 332, note is 

 taken that oxen bought for navy stores in the reign of 

 Edward VI were about four cwts. in weight ; this I conclude 

 being dead weight. The average of the Winchester beasts is 

 a little over five cwts., and the difference seems to show an 

 improvement in the size of the animal. 



It is however pretty certain that occasionally oxen are 

 fatted to a far larger size than the Winchester average 

 suggests. Thus in 1603 a number of fat cattle are sold at 



