The Labour Question. 3^3 



B6i days =a quarter of malt. 



96 days =a fat hog, fourteen score, at 8.s. per score. 



27 or 28 days = a quarter of beans or peas. 



20 or 21 days = a quarter of barley. 



41 days =a flitch of bacon, six score, at 8.9. per score. 



9 days =a yard of cloth for servants. 



6 days =a pair of men's shoes. 



1 day =less than a gallon of ale. 



1 day = three lbs. ordinary cheese = lj lbs. butter. 



40 days = clothing for a year of a common servant of husbandry. 



Davies, as a result of personal inquiry, gives us the state- 

 ment set out on the following page of the expenditure and 

 receipts in six families belonging to his own parish of Bark- 

 ham, where, he states, two-fifths of the inhabitants were in 

 similar circumstances. 



Few poor families, it will be seen, could afford more than 

 1 lb. of meat, 1 to 1^ ozs. of tea, \ lb, of sugar, and \ lb. of 

 salt butter or lard per week. They could not spare funds 

 to buy milk, which was wanted for suckling calves destined 

 for the London veal supply, nor cheese, which was reckoned 

 the dearest article in use. Malt was so expensive that they 

 seldom brewed any small beer, except against a lying-in or a 

 christening. They eked out their supply of soap by burning 

 green fern and kneading the ashes into balls, with which 

 they made a lye for washing. 



In the case of No. 1 there were five children, all unable to 

 work, so that the whole of the earnings went in the purchase 

 of food. In No. 2, the family being deserted by the father, 

 was thrown on the parish — from which it obtained 5,s. as a 

 weekly pension, board in the parish house, and some fuel and 

 clothing. Family No. 4 was the best off, because it was in 

 receipt of a supply of meat from its employer, it owned some 

 potato ground, whereby a saving in bread was effected, and its 

 possession of sufficient credit enabled it to buy flour by the 

 sack, and therefore at a cheaper rate. In the case of No. 5 the 

 women helped a little towards the common earnings by taking 

 in the washing of one or two labourers, for the expense of 

 which in soap 6fZ. is estimated.' But in all six instances, though 



' Case, of the Labourers in Husbandry, p. Ji. 



