( XV ) 
PRICE OF PROVISIONS. 
1st Quarter. — Meat more than maintained its price, but both wheat 
and potatoes were unusually cheap. The mean of the lowest and 
highest prices of beef as sold at Leadenhall and Newgate was 54(7. 
against 5±d. in the same quarter of the two previous years ; and 
of mutton the mean price was 6£(7., which is also higher than in 
either of the two corresponding periods. Wheat declined to 40s. 4d. 
per quarter, each period of three months since September 1862 
having witnessed more or less fall in the price. From the date just 
specified the fall has caused a difference of 16s. 6(7. per quarter. 
Best potatoes have fallen to a mean price of 62s. 6(7. per ton at 
Southwark against double that price in the first three months of 
last year. 
2nd Quarter. — "Wheat was unusually cheap. Its average price in 
the three months was 39s. Id. per quarter. In the corresponding 
period of 1862 it was 56s. 8d. ; in that of 1863 it was 46s. 2d. The 
mean of the highest and lowest prices of beef as sold by the carcase 
in Leadenhall and Newgate was 5ld. per lb., and the same as in the 
June quarter of last year. Of mutton the mean price was 6^d., 
being higher than in the same season of 1862-63. The best 
potatoes were sold from 21. to 37. per ton in Southwark. The price 
was less than half of that for which they had been obtained in the 
spring of last year, and still lower in proportion to the price of 
1862. The working classes enjoj-ed cheap markets for supplying 
themselves with the chief necessaries of life. 
