ey will sell as fine a haunch for
half a crown as would cost full thirty shillings in England. Bread
is much cheaper than we have in England, but is not near so good.
Butter is very fine and cheaper than ever I bought any in London;
the best is sold all summer for threepence a pound. But as for
cheese, it is neither cheap nor good."

I am somewhat surprised at Bennet's dictum with regard to cheese, and
can only feel that he had special ill fortune in choosing his
cheesemonger. For certainly the Rhode Island cheese, made from the rich
milk of the great herds of choice cows that dotted the fertile and sunny
fields of old Narragansett, was sent to England and the Barbadoes in
great quantity, and commanded special prices there. Brissot said it was
equal to the "best Cheshire of England or Rocfort of France." This
cheese was made from a receipt for Cheshire cheese which was brought to
Narragansett by Richard Smith's wife in the seventeenth century: and her
home is still standing, though built around, at Cocumcussett, where her
husband and Roger Williams founded a colony.

We have a very distinct rendering of the items of family expense,
chiefly of food, at about that time, given us by a contemporary
authority, and bequeathed to us in a letter to the _Boston News Letter_
of November 28, 1728. The writer refers to other "scheams of expence"
for a household which have been made public, one apparently being at the
rate of L250 a year for the entire outlay. This sum he thinks inadequate
and "disproves in a moment." He gives his own careful estimate of the
cost of keeping a family of eight persons. It is computed for "Families
of Midling Figure who bear the Character of being Genteel," and reads
thus:

"For Diet. For one Person a Day.

1 Breakfast 1_d._ a Pint of Milk 2d .03

2 Dinner. Pudding Bread Meat Roots Pickles Vinegar
Salt & Cheese .09

N.B. In this article of the Dinner I would include
all the Raisins Currants Suet Flour Eggs Cranberries
Apples & where there are children all their Intermeal
Eatings throughout the whole Year. And I think a Gentleman
cannot well Dine his family at a lower Rate than this.

3 Supper As the Breakfast .03

4 Small Beer for the Whole Day Winter & Summer. 1-1/2

N.B. In this article of the Beer I wou