I have chosen the earlier civilization
of England in my examples, not because the Book of Exodus, the Pyramids,
and the temples of Baalbec and Karnac fail to betray the needed
evidences of almost super human toil, but because the authorities at my
disposal touching upon earlier times fail to furnish me
THE SATISFACTORY COMMERCIAL DATA
also needed as a parallel. Let us, then, put our laborer in England in
the year 1350. He had at that time so far progressed that, under certain
very restricted circumstances, his life was preserved, and he was
allowed to earn wages for his labor. He worked fourteen hours for a
legal day's work in winter and fifteen hours in summer, but I have
everywhere in the following statements computed his hours as fourteen.
If he were a common laborer he received one penny. If he were
A SKILLED FIELD HAND,
he could earn three times as much money. The English penny is to-day a
very large copper coin, being worth two cents, but in those times it
weighed three times as much as to-day, as did all current coins. In
addition to this great weight, money was very scarce, and fully six or
seven times as valuable in many commodities as to-day.
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