L s. d.

Food, per week, 7s. 6d.; per year 19 10 0
Beer " 1s. 6d. " 3 18 0
Soap and candles 1 5 0
Rent 1 10 0
Clothes 2 10 0
Fuel 2 0 0
Illness, &c. 1 0 0
Infant 2 12 0
----------
L34 5 0
==========

This, with the same Income as before, left him with a surplus of L3
10s. 0d.; but as it was not likely his wife could work all the year
round, or that both his eldest children should be boys, it appears
that his expenses must often have exceeded his income. This being so,
it is not surprising that he was often drunken and reckless, and ready
to come on the parish for relief. To labour incessantly, often with
wife and boys, to live very poorly, yet not even make both ends meet,
was enough to kill all spirit in any one.

A great evil from which the labourer suffered was the restrictions
thrown on him of settling in another parish. If he desired to take his
labour to a better market he often found it closed to him. His
marriage was discouraged,[473] because a single man did not want a
cottage and a married one did. To ease the rates there was open war
against cottages, and many were pulled down.[474] If a labourer in a
parish to which he did not legally belong signified his intention of
marrying, he immediately had notice to quit the parish and retire to
his own, unless he could procure a certificate that neither he nor his
would be chargeable. If he went to his own parish he came off very
badly, for they didn't want him, and cottages being scarce he probably
had to put up with sharing one with one or more families. Sensible men
cried out for the total abolition of the poor laws, the worst effects
of which were still to be felt.

Yet there was a considerable migration of labour at harvest time when
additional hands were needed. Labourers came from neighbouring
counties, artisans left their workshops in the towns, Scots came to
the Northern counties, Welshmen to the western, and Irishmen appeared
in many parts; and they were as a rule supplied by a contractor.[475]

London was regarded as a source of great evil to the country by