ings. Bread, therefore, such as is
now given to the inmates of a workhouse, was then seldom seen, even on
the trencher of a yeoman or of a shopkeeper. The great majority of the
nation lived almost entirely on rye, barley, and oats.

The produce of tropical countries, the produce of the mines, the
produce of machinery, was positively dearer than at present. Among the
commodities for which the labourer would have had to pay higher in
1685 than his posterity now pay were sugar, salt, coals, candles,
soap, shoes, stockings, and generally all articles of clothing and all
articles of bedding. It may be added, that the old coats and blankets
would have been, not only more costly, but less serviceable than the
modern fabrics.

It must be remembered that those labourers who were able to maintain
themselves and their families by means of wages were not the most
necessitous members of the community. Beneath them lay a large class
which could not subsist without some aid from the parish. There can
hardly be a more important test of the condition of the common people
than the ratio which this class bears to the whole society. At present,
the men, women, and children who receive relief appear from the official
returns to be, in bad years, one tenth of the inhabitants of England,
and, in good years, one thirteenth. Gregory King estimated them in his
time at about a fourth; and this estimate, which all our respect for
his authority will scarcely prevent us from calling extravagant, was
pronounced by Davenant eminently judicious.

We are not quite without the means of forming an estimate for ourselves.
The poor rate was undoubtedly the heaviest tax borne by our ancestors in
those days. It was computed, in the reign of Charles the Second, at near
seven hundred thousand pounds a year, much more than the produce either
of the excise or of the customs, and little less than half the entire
revenue of the crown. The poor rate went on increasing rapidly, and
appears to have risen in a short time to between eight and nine hundred
thousand a year, that is to say, to one sixth of what it now is. The
population was then less than a third of what it now is. The minimum
of wages, estimated in money, was half of what it now is; and we can
therefore hardly suppose that the average allowance made to a pauper can
have been more than half of what it now is. It seems to follow that the
proportion of the English people which received parochial relief the