LABOUR AND WAGES. 655 



labourers in husbandry are paid. The latter evidently waits 

 on the former, as the pairs are employed for exactly the same 

 number of days. Working in water is always paid at a higher 

 rate than ordinary labour. Thus in 1585 it is at icd. ; in 1646 

 at is.-, in 1662, 1663, and 1665 it is at is. 6d. In 1668 Eton 

 employs a number of men for a considerable time in scouring 

 a pond at is. 4^., ordinary labour being at this time is. a 

 day. 



There are several other kinds of labour, employed more or 

 less frequently and of considerable significance, in building and 

 other avocations, some paid by the piece, some by the day. 

 One of the commonest of these is lath-rending. I should 

 conclude, from the almost unchanged rate at which this service 

 was performed, that it was a bye-industry, done after working 

 hours, or when the labourer could not find employment. It 

 is so frequently recorded, that I have been able to construct a 

 series of decennial averages, in which only one of the decades 

 is unrepresented, and I am persuaded that the price in this 

 decade did not vary materially from those which have been 

 drawn. Sometimes the laths, or asseruli as the accounts often 

 call them, are plainly pales, as in 1600 and 1629. The rapidity 

 with which the work of lath-rending could be done is illustrated 

 by a day payment (io<) in 1611 for the service. 



Another common kind of piece-work is paving by the square 

 yard. This is generally paid at 3*/., though when the work 

 requires great nicety, as when the floor of chapel or hall is 

 laid, the rate is higher. Thus in 1597 All Souls College buys 

 paving tiles, probably for the hall floor, and pays at the rate 

 of $d. a foot for the labour of laying them. In 1614 King's 

 College lays 90 feet of marble, no doubt in the choir, and 220 

 feet of rag, almost certainly in the nave, at *j\d. the foot. In 

 1632 Corpus Christi College puts down paving by the foot at 

 id. In 1646 King's College again paves the chapel at i\d. 

 the foot, and in 1654 Winchester lays 518 feet of paving at 

 5\d. Lastly, in 1693 S. John's College, Cambridge, lays paving 

 at $d. a foot. 



