_ _s._ _d._

A pair of shoes 0 0 4
Russet broad-cloth the yard 0 1 1
A stall-fed ox 1 4 0
A grass-fed ox 0 16 0
A fat sheep unshorn 0 1 8
A fat sheep shorn 0 1 2
A fat hog 2 years old 0 3 4
A fat goose 0 0 2-1/2
Ale, the gallon, by proclamation 0 0 1
Wheat the quarter 0 3 4
White wine the gallon 0 0 6
Red wine 0 0 4

These prices are taken from the PRECIOSUM of BISHOP FLEETWOOD, who took
them from the accounts kept by the bursers of convents. All the world
knows, that FLEETWOOD'S book is of undoubted authority.--We may then
easily believe, that "beef, pork, mutton, and veal," were "the food of the
_poorer sort_," when a _dung-cart filler_ had more than the price of _a
fat goose and a half for a day's work_, and when a woman was allowed, for
_a day's weeding_, the price of a _quart of red wine_! Two yards of the
cloth made a coat for the _shepherd_; and, as it cost 2_s._ 2_d._, the
reaper would earn it _in 6-1/2 days_; and, the dung-cart man would earn
very nearly a _pair of shoes every day_! this dung-cart filler would earn
a _fat shorn sheep_ in four days; he would earn a _fat hog_, two years
old, in twelve days; he would earn a _grass-fed ox_ in twenty days; so
that we may easily believe, that "beef, pork, and mutton," were "the food
of the _poorer sort_." And, mind, this was "a _priest-ridden people_;" a
people "buried in _Popish superstition_!" In our days of "_Protestant
light_" and of "_mental enjoyment_," the "poorer sort" are allowed by the
Magistrates of Norfolk, 3_d._ a day for a _single man_ able to work. That
is to say, a half-penny _less_ than the Catholic dung-cart man had; and
that 3_d._ will get the "_No Popery_" gentleman about _six ounces_ of old
ewe-mutton, while the Popish dung-cart man got, for his day, rather more
than _the quarter of a fat sheep_.--But, the popish people might work
_harder_ than "_enlightened_ Protestants." They might do _more work in a
day_. This is contrary to all the assertions of the _feelosophers_; for
they insist, that the Catholic religion made people _idle_. But, to set
this matter at rest, let us look at the price of the _job-labour_; at the
_mowing_ by _the acre_, and at the _thrashing_ of wheat by