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CONTENTS.

WAGES IN 17TH AND 19TH CENTURIES.

Running my eye accidentally through the household book of Sir Roger Twysden, from 1659 to 1670, it occurred to me to make a comparison between the relative prices of meat and wages, as there given, in order to ascertain the position of our peasantry in these parts, at the close of the 17th century. I send you a few extracts, by which it will be seen that, in Kent, at least, our agricultural labourers appear to have been in far better condition than those of the rest of England, who, in Mr. Macaulay’s brilliant work, are represented as living “almost entirely on rye, barley, and oats,” owing to the exorbitantly high price of meat, as compared with the ordinary scale of wages.

As to meat, I find the following entries:—

“1659.	Beef		2s. and 1s. 8d. per stone.
	a loin of mutton		1s. 6d.
1662.	Beef		2s. per stone.
	a shin of beef		1s. 10d.
	a loin of veal		3s. 4d.
	a calve’s head		1s. 2d.
	a quarter of mutton		4s. 4d. and 5s.
	a side of mutton		9s.
1664.	8 quarters of mutton		32s.
	1 quarter of do.