FOOD, DRESS, AND " CREDIT." 285 



sixpence per pound. In 1850, bread was fivepence 

 for the four-pound loaf ; meat, fivepence per pound ; 

 and butter, one shilling. In 1878, bread was sixpence 

 per loaf ; meat, ninepence a pound ; and butter, twenty 

 pence a pound. Cottage rents, which in 1770 were 

 eightpence a week, were seventeen pence in 1850, and 

 two shillings in 1878. Wages show a considerable 

 increase. From an average of seven shillings and 

 threepence a week in 1770, they had increased to nine 

 shillings and sevenpence in 1850, and to fourteen shillings 

 in 1878. 



From a note we made in 1880 we extract the follow- 

 ing : 



" Since the year 1770 there has undoubtedly been owing 

 to the introduction of machinery and to other causes an 

 improvement in farming ; and "this improvement, so far 

 as general husbandry is concerned, had continued until the 

 last few years. But, in this respect, there has, of late, 

 been a great falling off. It may be assumed that very 

 little change has taken place in the relative position of the 

 foregoing figures since 1878. The prices of bread, butter, 

 and meat remain about the same for the falling off in the 

 supply of agricultural produce since 1878, owing to the 

 period of ' depression ' that has occurred, a falling off 

 which, in an ordinary way, would have caused a rise of 

 prices, has been counterbalanced by largely increased 

 supplies of food from abroad. Corn and butchers' meat, 



Eoultry, fish, and other tinned articles of consumption 

 ave been pouring into this country of late years chiefly 

 from the United States of America in rapidly increasing 

 quantities ; and prices would have fallen lower than they 

 have fallen of late, but for an increased and increasing 

 consumption, stimulated by the recent and continuing 

 revival of trade. The money earnings of the peasantry 

 have fallen somewhat since 1878, from the general average 

 for that year. But the fall is, doubtless, only a temporary 

 one, and wages are certain to recover the rate prevailing 

 in 1878 under the influence of the good harvest of the 

 present year of 1880. The average money earnings of the 

 West Country peasantry are, of course, below the general 

 average ; but the cost of items of living, other than bread, 

 is also somewhat below the rates we have mentioned as 

 prevailing at the latest of the three periods we have referred 

 to. The price of bread is tolerably uniform throughout the 

 country. But butter in the western counties, of the quality 

 consumed by the peasantry, can always be obtained for a 



