3IO History of the English Landed Interest. 



the aged and impotent was, he deemed, an end worthy of any 

 amount of self-sacrifice on the part of the public. But towards 

 the close of the century in which he lived, a growing discontent 

 from both sections of the community had attracted his notice. 

 The rich complained loudly of the great and rapid increase 

 of the poor-rate, and the poor bitterly of the inadequate relief 

 afforded by it. Now Davies attributed this untoward state 

 of affairs chiefly to the increased prices of food. Anxious 

 to learn if the altered cost of necessaries had really brought 

 about this distress, he set himself the task of collecting and 

 publishing a series of statistics bearing on the condition of 

 the rural labourer at different periods of history. He was 

 quite aware that, though a comparison between prices about 

 the middle of the century and at the end of it might show 

 a considerable rise in the value of the necessaries of life, yet, 

 if the relative proportion between the value of both labour 

 and the necessaries of life had remained constant, no increased 

 demand on the poor-rates could have occurred from this cause. 

 On the other hand, if he could ascertain that the relative 

 proportion between the value of labour and of the necessaries 

 of life had altered for the worse, then he possessed a strong 

 argument in favour not only of abolishing the flagitious prac- 

 tice of rating wages according to the statute 5 Eliz. c. 4, but 

 of instituting in its stead a standard, such as the price of bread, 

 for regulating the money value of the labourer's daily toil. 



And first, regarding the prices of the necessaries of life at 

 different periods of the century. During its first ten years 

 the average cost per quarter of wheat was £2 3s. h\d. ; during 

 the ten years ending 1755, it was £1 17n. \\d. ; and during the 

 ten years ending 1792, it was £2 18,s\^ 



The following table gives a comparison of other neces- 

 saries : ^ — 



* The prices in the two former periods were taken from the Eton 

 register, those in the last period from the books of the Dean and Canons 

 of Windsor. Davies' Ca.se of the Labourers in Husbandry^ p. 64. 



■'' Prices in the earlier of those two periods were obtained from aged 

 persons of good memory, who had i-esided all their lifetime in or near 

 the parish of Barkham. Id. Ibid., p. G5, Davies. 



