LAND CARRIAGE. 763 



not made till the middle of the eighteenth century at earliest. 

 I have therefore I think stated the distance moderately at four 

 miles, and there is reason to believe that only one of these 

 journeys could be performed in a day, taking into account the 

 time employed in loading and unloading the waggon. The 

 load too, as usual by land carriage, was a ton. 



Now the cost of transport will be best explained by taking 

 decennial averages through the whole time for which the record 

 of payment is made : 



1583-1592 ... is. gd. 1613-1622 ... 2s. 



1593-1602 ... is. 8}d. 1623-1632 ... 2s. 



1603-1612 ... 2s. od. I ^33~ I ^35 ... 2J. 



1644 ... 5^. 



It will be obvious from the above figures that the hire of a 

 two-horse cart or waggon for the carriage of firewood, whether 

 it be interpreted as a short day, or as a journey which might 

 be repeated perhaps in the day, rose sensibly after 1613 and 

 up to the time that the nearly continuous record closes, from 

 an average of is. <)\d. to one of 2s. iod., or of sixty per cent. 

 The reader will perhaps infer with me that the last entry at 

 55. is exceptional, and should be explained in the light of the 

 fact to which I have referred, that from September 1644 to 

 September 1645 Oxford was besieged. In the first thirty 

 years then, the cost of conveying a ton of firewood, including 

 the out-journey, was a fraction over $d. a mile, and during 

 the next thirty years was %\d. The fact that these charges 

 for conveyance were the result of a bargain, and not a 

 customary charge, is, apart from the rise, proved I think- 

 by the fact, that the price of the service in 1613 and 1615 

 .n average from three different rates in the first case, 

 two in the second. In further illustration of my inference, it 

 will be seen that, in 1610, a man and a four-horse waggon were 

 hired for two days at Oxford at 3^. 4d. a day. In the journeys 

 to Stowford then, charged at 2s. a load, there were two horses 

 employed, and there was only a short day's work. 



Oriel College had another piece of ground, the site of the 



