SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY 



attention from a parish officer.' In one bed, which is little more than a few 

 rags, five persons sleep. One inmate is quite naked ; one sleeps on the 

 ground with a few rags to cover her. ' She wanted a little straw ; the parish 

 officers would not give it her, and she purchased three pennyworth.' As late 

 as 1 8 17 Sundon workhouse was found to be in a filthy condition, the well 

 was filled with dirt and filth, and it was found ' necessary forthwith ' to pro- 

 vide eight bedsteads, eight beds, sixteen blankets, two pairs of sheets to each 

 bed, and eight rugs. In the same year, ' eighty respectable gentlemen and 

 tradesmen ' of Bedford petitioned the mayor to hold a meeting of protest 

 against the management of the Bedford house of industry ; and when the 

 mayor declined to interfere the petitioners asked for the use of County Hall 

 fi^r a meeting. We have been looking above at the shady side of the 

 picture : it must not be forgotten that it is that side which is generally the 

 most conspicuous in historical records. By reading between the lines we find 

 evidences of a generally prosperous condition of the county. The contrast 

 between the i8th century and the 19th in Bedfordshire is probably to be 

 sought chiefly in the difference of manners and customs. The former century 

 was less humanitarian, especially in the treatment of prisoners and the poor, 

 than the latter. 



Certain now obsolete practices in business were still fully in vogue in 

 the 1 8th century. Not only was it usual, but until the passing of the Act 54 

 Geo. Ill, cap. 96, it was still legally obligatory, to serve an apprenticeship in 

 order to have a right to carry on certain trades. In 1738 a grocer is indicted 

 for exercising ' the art, mystery, or manual occupation ' of a butcher, without 

 having served a seven years' apprenticeship. In 1 744 a warrant is issued for 

 the arrest of a man who has carried on the trade of a blacksmith without 

 previously serving a seven years' apprenticeship. Ten years later there are a 

 baker and a barber, both of whom thus break the law. In 1758 a shoe- 

 maker and a tailor are indicted, and other cases occur to the end of the 

 century. According to the Bedford Borough Records there was in 1745 a 

 question raised as to whether freemen ought not to be disfranchised for taking 

 apprentices improperly. 



We found that in the 1 3th century the townsmen of Dunstable were 

 frequent offenders in the matter of false weights and measures. In the i8th 

 century, elsewhere in the county, this offence appears to have been allowed 

 to exist unchecked, for in 1802 the Biggleswade magistrates — for the first 

 time, it is said — ordered an inspection to be made in their district, with the 

 result that there were eighty-seven convictions. Another offence, not alto- 

 gether unknown at present, was also occasionally detected ; a baker was 

 accused of ' selling sixpenny loaves not made according to the Act of Parlia- 

 ment,' and in 1 779 a man was fined 40J. for selling ' a half-peck loaf wanting 

 eight ounces.' A conviction in 1797 for 'engrossing' — the laws against 

 which were repealed by 7 and 8 Vict. cap. 24 — ten loads of wheat, gives the 

 price of corn at the time, the wheat in question being valued at ' £^7. ^s. a 

 load of five bushels.' The calculation of the tithe also affords us information 

 as to the price of corn. The tithe, according to the Act of 35 Geo. Ill, was 

 estimated upon the average price of the Winchester bushel of good marketable 

 wheat in the Bedford market, as published in the London Gazette, for the preced- 

 ing fourteen years. In 1 8 1 o the average price of the preceding fourteen years 

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