was
allowed after harvest a load of "haulm," or wheat stubble, left in the
field from reaping time. This "haulm" was useful not only for lighting
fires with, but, like the bean stubs, for heating those capacious brick
ovens in the old chimney corners, in which most of the cottagers then
baked their own bread. Sometimes the stage wagoners brought a "mixed"
cargo, and put coals into their wagons to fill up, and undersold the
dealers (at less than 13d. a bushel), and the practice was complained
of at Cambridge, more especially respecting Royston and Buntingford
districts.

It may seem strange now to speak of persons, even at a hospitable
board, having taken too much salt, carefully replacing some of it, upon
economical grounds; but, considering that there was then a duty of a
guinea a bushel upon this necessary article, it is not surprising. Our
grandfathers paid about 6d. a pound for their salt; the commonest
calico was 10d. a yard, and printed calicoes 2s. 2d. per yard. In 1793
the average price of sugar, wholesale, was 66s. 7 1/2d. per cwt.,
exclusive of duty. Between 1810 and the Battle of Waterloo were many
times of scarcity, with wheat varying from 100s. to 126s. a quarter,
and some in Royston market reached 20s. a bushel. As to clothing,
there were very few ready-made clothes, and the village tailor was a
man of importance {76} when leather breeches and smock frocks were in
general demand. A smock frock, washed till it was quite white, was as
common a sight then as was the scarlet cloak worn by our
great-grandmothers, but both these familiar sights have disappeared as
completely as the yellow leather top boots, to be seen on Sundays up
till fifty years ago in the Churchyards of rural England.

[Illustration: A LADY OF THE PERIOD.]

The vagaries of fashion at the beginning of the century were of almost
inconceivable variety and extravagance; not only the ladies, but
dandies of the opposite sex wore stays for the improvement of the
figure, and curled their hair with curling irons! Though wigs had
almost gone out of fashion, hair powder had not. In a former sketch a
figure of a lady in the earlier years of the reign of George III. was
given. The above is another specimen of head gear at a later period of
the same reign.

{77}

Trades necessarily followed fashions, and, when snuff-taking was almost
universal, the manufacture of gold, silver, and baser metal
snuff-boxes, was a thriving trade. A hair dr