The citizen., 1910-03-04


ing for our English ancestors several
hundred years ago. We can get the
prices because one of Henry VIII. s
parliaments fixed them by statute,
raising them on the whole so that the
people were discontented. Beef and
pork were half penny Gone cent? a
pound, mutton three farthings Ga
cent and half. Before the enact
ment fat oxen could be had for 26
shillings Ca little more than So,
fat sheep or calf for 80 cents. Lon
don butchers sold two and half and
three pounds of beef for cents. The
best pig would fetch only cents in
country market. but goose was
worth as much. The price of a good
oapon was from to cents, of hen
cents. of chicken cents. Strong
beer cost cents a gallon: table beer
less than cent. Best French and
German wines were 16 cents gallon.
Good red and white wines were sold
for cents a gallon, with penalties
for poor stuff or short measure.
wages Into Meat and Drink.
OF course money was scarce.
Skilled labor (by statute) received IL
cents day for one-half of the year,
10 for the other. For the correspond
ing periods common labor received
s and 6 cents. In the harvest
months, though. special allowances
were made to laborers Mowers, for
example, were paid 16 cents day.
Thus skilled laborer's average day
wage I'll cents) would buy eleven
pounds of beef and pork, or pretty
nearly pig and a half. or nearly
three hens, or nearly six chickens, or
more than five gallons of strong beer,
or more than eleven gallons of table
teer. About half of it would buy for
the table three pounds of beef, a
chicken and gallon of beer.
Very Low Rents.
The great mass of English wage
earners under the gay King Hal could
spend practically all their pay for
meat and drink, rents being negligi-
lie, and nobody Except the aristoc-
racy) doing much in or on the clothes
line. The laborer at cents day in
the country could live on the fat of
the land. Though his rent was moth
ing he could get most of his living
out of what ne rented. Latimer re-
cords that for three pounds year, at
the minimum, and four pounds at the
maximum, his father rented a farm
big enough to require six men tc till:
there was sheep walk for a hundred
sheep. and his mother MIXED thirty
cows. The boy was kept at school
until he became "e preacher before
the Kings Majesty" five sisters were
lowered at their marriage with five
pounds each. Besides all this, Lati-
mer's farmer father kept hospitali-
ty for his poor neighbors. and some
aims he gave to the poor"
Land With Every Cottage.
If Latiner's father could rent 50
fine farm for SC little. the laborer
must have had the merest trifle of
In the time of Henry VIII. in the par
ishes there were reserved for the la
horer, as shown in Froude, Large
ranges of common and of uninclosed
forest, which furnished his fuel tc
him gratis; where pigs might range
and ducks and geese; where, if he
could afford COW, he was in no dan
ger of being unable to feed it." This
was considered so essential to the
prosperity of the people that when
more and more land was being ac-
quired by big holders, Parliament
enacted in Elizabeth's reign that no
cottage should be built for laborers
without at least four acres of land
going with it for their use.
After the Food Trusts.
When Henry VIII. found that the
beef trusts and egg trusts and poul-
try trusts of his day were getting con-
troll OF the market through acquiring
a moaopoly of the lands and restrict
ing their use he and Parliament at
tackled the monopolists with law
enacting that no person should have
or keep On lands not his own inheri-
tance more than 1000 sheep; no per-
son occupy more than two farms
etc. The language of this statute was
not unlike Mr.. Roosevelt's in speak
ing of undesirable citizens: Where
as. divers and sundry persons
have daily studied, practiced and in
vented ways and means how they
might accumulate and gather to-
gether in a few hands great multi
tudes CT farm and great plenty of
cattle have raised ard en-
hanced the price OF all manner of
corr. cattle. wool, pigs. geese. hens,
chickens. eggs, and such other COM