380 



A TOPOGRAPHICAL 



These prices are in an household book apparently kept in the 

 neighbourhood of Whitmore from 1738 to 1741 : 



A Calf from 6s. to 9a. 



A fat Ewe, 5s. 



Beef Id. to 2d. per Ib. 



Pork 2d. 



A pair of calves plucks, 6d. 



Bacon was 4d. per Ib. 

 Butter, 3d. 

 Cheese, 2d. 

 Beef, 2d. 



Potatoes, 9d. the bushel. 

 Wheat, 2s. 6d. to 5s. per bushel. 

 Barley, Is. 4d. to 2s. 6d. ditto. 

 Malt, 3s. to 3s. Gd. ditto. 

 Oats, 7d. to 15d. ditto. 



Wheat from 4s. to Cs. per bushel. 

 Barley, 3s. 



Oats from Is. 4d. to 2s. 6d. 

 [The latter price was sowing 

 grain.] 



The following is the average price, according to the statement of 

 several old men, some of whom were upwards of, and others ap- 

 proaching to, the age of 80 years in 1813. Two of them had 

 lived from their childhood in the neighbourhood of Whitmore. In 

 their juvenile days, 



Cow, (barren) 2Z. 15s. to 3Z. 

 Ditto, good milch and calf, 3l. to 52. 

 Calf, 6s. 



Milk, two quarts for Id. 

 Sheep, (barren,) 6s. 

 A Pig (good store) 12s. 

 Labourers' wages 4d. a day and meat. 

 Land, 7s. to 14s. an acre ; and 16s. 



a great price for an acre of meadow. 

 [A House for 12s. which in 1813 would rent for 3l. a-year. 



Though the prices of the above articles are ever in a fluctuating 

 state, yet they may serve to enable the reader to form an idea of 

 the comparative value of twenty pounds a-year in the days of Mr. 

 Ball, while minister of Whitmore ; but this divine possessed other 

 advantages of no mean description besides his annual stipend : the 

 chief of which must be accounted the constant friendship of the first 

 family, and chief proprietor of estates in the parish. Such a con- 

 nection could not fail of adding weight to his ministry in several 

 respects. It no doubt enabled him to improve his abilities* by a 

 constant intercourse with enlightened minds, and by a free access 

 to a good library : for it appears from his life, that he boarded with 

 the family of Mainwaring, not only while a bachelor, but several 

 years after he was married. Six children were born in their house, 



* He is represented as having been a man of great talents in assisting and 

 healing " dejected tempted Christians." His ability to counsel and comfort 

 persons of that description, as he was wont to acknowledge, was occasioned 

 " by his conversing with Mrs. Sarah Mainwayring, (wife to the gentleman in 

 whose house he continued many years) who was much exercised in that kind, 

 and was an unparallel'd gentlewoman for holy tendernesse and exactnesse in 

 religion." She was a Miss Stone, and married Edward Mainwayringe, Esq. 

 at Bowe Church, in Chepsyde, London, Sept. 6th, 1600. She died at Whit, 

 more, where she was buried in July 1648, aged 71 years. The parish register 

 contains an high encomium on her merits. 



