He thus was going backward, for temporary reasons,
however, and had to pay seven days' (98 hours') labor for his bushel of
wheat and 110 days' (1540 hours') labor for his ox. The ox had twice as
much beef on him as the ox of 1350.
AND STILL FOR ANOTHER HUNDRED YEARS,
the march of the laborer upward was retarded by wars, famines, and
"deaths," as their plagues were called. In 1795, one of the darkest of
those dark years, we find the skilled laborer receiving 1 shilling 5-1/4
pence per day (still of fourteen hours in winter, fifteen in summer). He
paid 7 shillings 10 pence for a bushel of wheat and L16 8 shillings for
an ox. This means that he paid five days' (70 hours') labor for his
bushel of wheat and 119 days' (1666 hours') labor for his ox. The ox
was what is technically called "a fair critter."
TO-DAY THE SAME LABORER,
working ten hours a day--counting all the perquisites which have fallen
to his lot,--the crumbs from the tables of his prosperous
superiors,--the same laborer, I say, gets 3 shillings a day. He pays 6
shillings for a bushel of wheat and L12 for an ox.
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