574 ON THE PRICE OF TEXTILE FABRICS. 



may detect the growth of English home manufactures, and in 

 the dropping of distinct names of origin, the anxiety of the 

 dealer not to disparage his goods by candidly stating that 

 they were not exotic. For it is a well-known fact in the 

 experience of modern trade, that fashion and vanity will give 

 more for foreign goods than they will for home produce, and 

 take no trouble to discover whether the quality is equal 

 or better, and that astute traders play on these weaknesses, 

 and even affix or procure to be affixed foreign marks to 

 English goods in order that they may get higher prices from 

 those who cannot detect the deception or do not care to do 

 so. It is probable that the beaux of the Restoration were 

 similarly deceived. 



The seventeenth century was emphatically an age of holiday 

 and working-day clothes. I have therefore attempted to 

 extract some information as to the cheapest kinds of clothing 

 which were purchased. Some of these come from the accounts 

 of well-to-do, or even noble persons, and I am sure that these 

 people, when they were not consulting their station, but living 

 in the country on their own estates, dressed as plainly as their 

 tenants did, for many of my entries come from what is clearly 

 the personal expenditure of such persons. I have therefore 

 drawn up a table for what is practically cheap woollen clothing 

 for all classes. It is found to be on an average about 3^. i\d. 

 the yard. The average similarly gathered of the dearest 

 kinds of cloth is zos. \\d.^ or more than six times as high. 

 We may be sure that the fine dresses of the smart people were 

 only worn on special occasions or in special places. 



The names given to woollen goods are very numerous, and 

 many of them are obsolete. Among them the commonest, 

 and one of the most ancient, is frieze. I find it in twenty- 

 nine years. It is generally a cheap product, a coarse common 

 cloth, the price of which ranges between a shilling a yard or 

 less, to two shillings or more. But throughout the whole 

 period there are qualities of clotji quoted under this name 

 which differ greatly from the commoner kinds. Thus in 



