lf fairly paid if
he gained six shillings a week.

It may here be noticed that the practice of setting children prematurely
to work, a practice which the state, the legitimate protector of those
who cannot protect themselves, has, in our time, wisely and humanely
interdicted, prevailed in the seventeenth century to an extent which,
when compared with the extent of the manufacturing system, seems almost
incredible. At Norwich, the chief seat of the clothing trade, a little
creature of six years old was thought fit for labour. Several writers
of that time, and among them some who were considered as eminently
benevolent, mention, with exultation, the fact that, in that single
city, boys and girls of very tender age created wealth exceeding what
was necessary for their own subsistence by twelve thousand pounds a
year. [200] The more carefully we examine the history of the past, the
more reason shall we find to dissent from those who imagine that our age
has been fruitful of new social evils. The truth is that the evils are,
with scarcely an exception, old. That which is new is the intelligence
which discerns and the humanity which remedies them.

When we pass from the weavers of cloth to a different class of artisans,
our enquiries will still lead us to nearly the same conclusions. During
several generations, the Commissioners of Greenwich Hospital have kept a
register of the wages paid to different classes of workmen who have been
employed in the repairs of the building. From this valuable record 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 a crown to five and threepence,
those of the carpenter from half a crown to five and fivepence, and
those of the plumber from three shillings to five and sixpence.

It seems clear, therefore, that the wages of labour, estimated in money,
were, in 1685, not more than half of what they now are; and there were
few articles important to the working man of which the price was not,
in 1685, more than half of what it now is. Beer was undoubtedly much
cheaper in that age than at present. Meat was also cheaper, but was
still so dear that hundreds of thousands of families scarcely knew
the taste of it. [201] In the cost of wheat there has been very little
change. The average price of the quarter, during the last twelve years
of Charles the Second, was fifty shill