MARKETING THREE HUNDRED YEARS AGO. 
239 
this city, where the proportion ranges from 48 to 120 grains 
per gallon. Dr. Letheby concludes with a report of the 
sanitary work done in the city during the year . — The Journal 
of the Society of Arts, February 11th, 1870. 
MARKETING THREE HUNDRED YEARS AGO. 
The art of marketing, like many other useful and old- 
fashioned customs, is nearly extinct, and if it exists at all, it 
is only in some little country town to which railways have 
not yet penetrated, and where local boards of health and in- 
spectors are unknown. In these primitive sleepy hollows 
(and there are still a few left) the country people meet once 
a week, not in a bran new market house, with iron railings 
and an elaborate drinking fountain, but sub jove as their fathers 
did before them, when the same provincial dialect is heard, 
and probably the same local jokes and proverbs as went the 
round a hundred years ago. 
One feature, however, has certainly not died out, and that 
is the spirit of bargaining, which is half the fun of the fair, 
and w^hich appears to be indigenous to the market woman, 
and, to a great extent, to the customer. Young ladies of the 
present day, if they ever did such a thing as go to market, 
w r ould probably pay dow r n what was demanded without cavil ; 
but our grandmothers would have scorned the action. It 
was perfectly understood on both sides that the beating down 
was a part of the performance, and if a few personalities 
could be delicately introduced, so much the better. 
Market day in the country, however, was not only the 
great gossip day w^hich had to last the whole of the week, 
but was the only opportunity which housekeepers had to lay 
in their stores of meat, poultry, eggs, and such like perish- 
able commodities. Now-a-days, the number of shops opened 
in the smallest towns has very much curtailed the general 
business, which nearly three hundred years ago was a serious 
affair, as the following bill will show ; it is that of a gentle- 
man's household in 1600 : — 
£ s. d. 
To a chine of Beef weighing 12 stone . . . 0 18 0 
Twelve Neats’ Tongues 0 12 0 
Two dry Neats’ Tongues 0 4 0 
Leg of Mutton .0110 
Nine Capons 12 0 
Ten good Wits (probably Plovers) . . . .080 
Six House Pigeons 0 4 4 
