The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1855-08-09

that time IN part TO that circumstance. Inc
annual wages of bailiff were raised by statute
from l3s. 4d., at which they were fixed fifty
wears before, to 23s 4d.; of master hind,
carter or chief shepherd, from los. to EOS. !;
of a common servant in husbandry, from Is. to
l5s." ain the case of laborers in
husbandry, the advance between 1888 and l444
seems to have been from fifty to hundred
per cent, and there is no reason to suppose
that it was not as great in the case of laborers
of other descriptions" &c. "The
improvement that continued to take place in
the condition of the working classes to the end
of the present period, (l399 to l485,) may be
inferred from the statutes respecting apparel,
which were passed in the reign of Edward Nv,
as compared with the enactments of the same
kind at an earlier date" &c.
The abolition of villenage and slavery, which
classes embraced in those early ages the great
body of the poor, of course threw upon the
state the necessity of maintaining the destitute,
aged, and in6rm; and hence the poor laws
are identical in origin with the abolition of
serfdom and slavery. The reason of the coin
cidence is too obvious to need word of COM
| ment, but it may be illustrated by the state of
things now existing in the South. They have
poor laws and paupers in all the slave States
and what classes are theyAo of? Not of the
slaves, because the State requires every slave
holder to take care of his slaves when they be-
come helpless, from age or in6rmity.~ Every
plantation is an asylum for the lame, the halt,
and the blind; but these, not being public in
stitutions, are taken no notice of by the col
lectors of statistics.
The public poor-houses of the South are in
tended exclusively for the free people-for the
poor whites and free negroes and, so far as
our observation extends, the latter are not lar
ger participants in proportion to numbers, of
State aid, than the whites. Now because there
are no slaves in poor-houses, and because the
the Enquirer contend that the white laboring
class of the South would be better off in sla-
very? If not, the editor should abandon the
argument, in its application to England.
But we proceed to introduce Mr.. Macaulay
as witness of the gradual improvement of
the condition of the laboring classes. He con-
trasts the period of Charles III with that of the
present day. (He wrote in l84S-9.) He says:
Sir William Petty, whose mere assertion
carries great weight, informs us that laborer
was by no means in the lowest state, who re-
ceived for days work fourpence, with food, or
eightpence, without food. Four shillings a
week, therefore, were, according to Petty's cal
culatiOn, fair agricultural wages"
" The wages of the common agricultural la
borer, from March to September, they (the JUS
tees of Warwickshire, in 1881 fixed at the
precise sum mentioned by Petty, namely, four
shillings a week, without food. From Septem-
Der to March, the wages were to he only three
shillings week." According to
him, Orchard Dunning,) the wages of the
Devonsdire peasant were, without food, about
five shillings week." "Still better
was the condition of the laborer in the neigh
borhood of Bury st. Edmund's. The magis-
trates of Suffolk met there in the spring of
1852, to fix rate of wages, and resolved, tina
where the laborer was not boarded, he shouldt
have five shillings week in winter, and six in
summer" ain 1861, the justices at
Chelmsford had fixed the wages of the Essex
laborer, who was not boarded, at six shillings
in winter, and seven in summer" -
".Wheat was at seventy shillings quarter,
famine price," "The pay of pri-
vate foot soldier in 1885, was only four shillings
and eightpence a week, yetit is certain that the
Government in that year found no difficulty in
obtaining many thousands of English recruits
at very short notice." "On the
whole, therefore, it seems reasonable to con-
clude, that in the reign of Charles Ii the ord-
nary wages of the peasant did not exceed four
shillings a week but that in some parts of the
kingdom five shillings six shillings, and, during
the summer months, even seven shillings, were
paid. At present, district where laboring
man earns only seven shillings a week is
thought to be in a state shocking to humanity.
The average is very much higher; and in pros
porous counties, the weekly wages of husband
men amount to twelve, fourteen, and even six
teen shilings."
In the year 1880, member of the House
of Commons remarked that the high wages paid
in this country made it impossible for our tex
lures to maintain a competition with the pro-
duce of the Indian looms. An English me-
chanic, he said, instead of shaving like a native
OF Bengal for piece of copper, exacted shil-
ling day." "a shilling a day, the
poet declares, is what the weaver would have,
Justice were done:
We will make them work hard for .ixpence a day,
Though shilling they Deserve if they had their just psyn
"From this valuable record, (Regis-
ter of Greenwich Hospital, y it appears that in
the course of a hundred and twenty years the
daily earnings of the bricklayer have risen from
half a crown to four and tenpence, those of the
mason from half crown to FIVE and three.
pence, those of the carpenter from half crown
to five and ivepence, those of the plumber
from three shillings to five and sixpence."
" 1t seems clear, therefore, that the wa
ges of labor, in money, were in 1856 not more
than halt OF what they now are and there were
few articles, important to the working man, of
which the price was not in 1856 more than half
OF what 1t now is. Beer was much cheaper in
that age than at present. Meat was also cheap
er, but was stih so dear that there were hum
dreds OF thousands of families who scarcely
knew the taste of it." "King, in
his natural and political conclusions, roughly
estimated the common people of England at
oS0,O00 families. Of these families, 100000
according to him, ate animal food twice week.
The remaining 100000 ate it not at all, or, at
most, not oftener than once a week." = ~
In the cost of wheat there has been very little
change. The average price of the quarter du-
ring the last twelve years of Charles ii was fifty
shilings. Bread, therefore, such as is now given
to the inmates of a work-house, was then seldom
seen, even on the trenchers of yeoman or q
shop-keeper. The great majority of the nation
lived almost entirely on rye, barley, and oats"
~ Among the commodities for which |
the laborer would have had to pay higher in
1855 than his posterity pay in l848, were sugar,
SALT Goals, candles, soap, shoes, stockings, and
generally all articles of clothing, and all articles
of bedding. 1t may be added, that the old
coats and blankets would have been not only |
more costly, but less serviceable than the mod |
ern fabrics"