772 ON THE COST OF CARRIAGE. 



In 1639 New College has three fothers of pig-lead sent 

 from London at 24^. the fother. This rate, a little over $d. 

 per ton per mile, is too low for land carnage, and it appears 

 plain to me, though no information is given me, that it came 

 by barge. 



In 1657, 22f cwt. 14 Ibs. of lead cost 6os. %d. to send 

 from London to Winchester. 9 The rate is 2s. *]\d. But it is 

 sent partly by water, partly by land, and no doubt the water 

 carriage was to Southampton. 



In 1663, New College sends 136 Ibs. weight of goods to 

 Winchester at id. the pound, and 24 Ibs. at 2d. It is about 

 seventy miles from Oxford to Winchester : id. the pound is 

 of course ys. 4d. the cwt.; 2,d. a pound, iSs. Sd. These 

 goods must have required extraordinary care, and the carrier 

 probably demanded high rates for them, because he incurred 

 considerable risk in conveying them. At the first of these 

 prices and at a distance of seventy miles the rate of the first 

 is is. Sd. per ton per mile ; of the second, 5^. 4d. 



The last of the entries which I have been able to make of 

 goods presumably conveyed by the. common carrier is of the 

 hydraulic lime purchased in 1693 in London, for the founda- 

 tions of the third quadrangle at S. John's College, Cambridge, 

 and forwarded to Cambridge from Bishopsgate. The whole 

 forty bushels were packed in ten sacks, and sent to Cambridge 

 at a cost of 645-. 8d. Now if we take 75 Ibs. to the bushel, 

 the weight of the whole must have been 3000 Ibs., 1 or a little 

 over 26J cwt. On this assumption the cost of carrying 

 this amount for fifty miles is almost exactly is. per ton per 

 mile. 



There are still a few articles carried by land, which are 

 either not reducible to weight at all, or else of so awkward a 

 shape as to be inconvenient for packing, or so small in bulk 

 that it could not be expected that the carrier would convey 



1 This by the way, as I learn from Cromwell's book of excise rates, is also the 

 weight of a ' mount ' of Plaster of Paris, a quantity for which I had searched in 

 vain to find a key. 



