., or
about 9s. a week, which would have to be made up out of the rates.

Of the peculiar hardship which thus grew up a correspondent in the
_Farmers' Magazine_, for 1800, says:--"The present period to this class
(small shopkeeper, &c.) who has a cow, and while he has it cannot have
relief, is truly distressing, but as for the labouring people, _they
are all on the parish funds_." It was stated in Parliament that
farmers were making 200 per cent. profit! The probability is, however,
that the great majority of farmers had little or no corn left to sell.
{60} Here is a communication apparently from a farmer, to the same
magazine, from a provincial market:--

"I am truly concerned to inform you that the price of grain advances
every succeeding market day and that there is no prospect whatever of a
fall. Wheat 23s. to 25s. per bushel. A number of principal fanners
convened by the Mayor had agreed to sell their wheat at 21s. per
bushel. Not long adhered to, for while I and others were selling at
that price others were getting 28s., and so the matter dropped. Price
of bread now almost out of reach of the poor; we have subscribed sums
of money to purchase butcher's meat and potatoes for distribution,
leaving them to buy bread with money received from the parish. As for
rice as substitute, it, like everything else, has advanced to double
the price. Herrings are strongly recommended by the Government."

Even barley bread was not easy to obtain, and we further learn that (by
April, 1801) "the state of the poor cottager is now truly deplorable,
for though barley may still be had it is at an enormous price, and it
is impossible for labourers to provide for their families at such
prices. It is to corn merchants and dealers in grain whose very
existence they have been taught to curse and deprecate that the good
people of this country must now look for near five months to come for
subsistence." "If we have not an early harvest, God knows what will be
the consequences," is another remark of a correspondent!

The old tales of "barley bread as black as your hat," which many
persons living have heard their grandfathers speak of, were no mere
tradition, but a stern hard fact, and whenever, in that terribly
anxious spring time of 1801, the poor could get a scrap of bacon, a
dish of tops of slinging nettles was by no means an uncommon resort to
eke out the means of a precarious existence. It is hardly an
exaggeration to say th