HERTFORD: MY HOME LIFE 77 



also was cheaper than now. The price of the best beef was 

 sixpence to sevenpence a pound; while mutton was seven- 

 pence to eightpence for the best joints, but for ordinary parts 

 much less. In the country gleaning was a universal practice, 

 and numbers of cottagers thus got a portion of their bread; 

 while a much larger proportion than now lived in the country 

 and had large gardens or a few acres of land. My mother 

 often took me with her when visiting such poor cottagers 

 as were known to her, and my impression is that there was 

 very little difference in the kind and degree of the rural pov- 

 erty of that day and this ; and a few years later, as I shall show, 

 the same may be said of the skilled mechanic. As a prime 

 factor in this question, it must always be remembered that 

 rent, both in villages and towns, was in most cases less than 

 half what it is at present, and this more than compensated for 

 the few cheaper articles of food and clothing to-day. 



My father and mother were old-fashioned religious people 

 belonging to the Church of England, and, as a rule, we all 

 went to church twice on Sundays, usually in the morning and 

 evening. We also had to learn a collect every Sunday morn- 

 ing, and were periodically examined in our catechism. On 

 very wet evenings my father read us a chapter from the Bible 

 and a sermon instead of the usual service. Among our friends, 

 however, were some Dissenters, and a good many Quakers, 

 who were very numerous in Hertford ; and on rare occasions 

 we were taken to one of their chapels instead of to church, 

 and the variety alone made this quite a treat. We were 

 generally advised when some " friend " was expected to speak, 

 and it was on such occasions that we visited the Friends' 

 Meeting-House, though I remember one occasion when, dur- 

 ing the whole time of the meeting, there was complete silence. 

 And when any brother or sister was " moved to speak," it 

 was usually very dull and wearisome; and after having at- 

 tended two or three times, and witnessed the novelty of the 

 men and women sitting on opposite sides of the room, and there 

 being no pulpit and no clergyman and no singing, we did not 

 care to go again. But the Dissenters' chapel was always a 

 welcome change, and we went there not unfrequently to the 



