ON THE PRICE OF STOCK AND MEAT. 335 



lence of the plague at Winchester, was continued to 1700, 

 after which the house bursar begins to enter cost without 

 quantities, a disappointment in accounts which I have been 

 constantly obliged to endure. 



The Winchester beef is generally cheaper than that pur- 

 chased at Cambridge. It may be that this fact is the result of 

 local cheapness, it is possibly due to the fact that the Fellows 

 of a Cambridge college might be more particular in supplying 

 their own wants than the Fellows of Winchester were in 

 catering for the schoolboys. There is again more fluctuation 

 in the Winchester prices, though the margin is narrow. 

 There are to be sure six years (1668-1673) of remarkable 

 cheapness, the price in the last year falling to the lowest of 

 the whole register, is. 4d. The highest price recorded is in 

 1666, when beef stands at an average of $s. id. But the 

 difference in the general average is not considerable, for 

 during the last sixty years of the Cambridge series the price 

 is $s. 5^., while at Winchester it is 3^. id. 



In p. 139 of his Political Arithmetic, Arthur Young gives 

 a series of beef and pork prices by the cwt., extracted from 

 the records of the Victualling Office, observing that these 

 prices are lower than those of ordinary markets, as might be 

 expected in the case of contracts on a large scale. Now of 

 Young's prices, twenty years (1683-1702) come within the 

 present period. For the whole twenty years the average is 

 is. yd., while at Cambridge it is $s. 5j</- at Winchester $s. id. 

 Young comments on the fact that during the time at which 

 he is writing, 1774, beef was very little dearer than it had 

 been in the seventeenth century, though wheat was greatly 

 enhanced in price. 



These are however not the only entries of beef which the 

 tables afford. The most considerable additional series is one 

 from Theydon Gernon for an unbroken period of twenty years, 

 where beef is bought by the stone of eight pounds, or as it 

 is sometimes called, the nail. These twenty years are 1601- 

 1620, the average in the first decade being is. 5//., in the 



