ledges that
many insisted on wheaten bread.[468] In Suffolk, according to
Cullum,[469] pork and bacon were the labourer's delicacies, bread and
cheese his ordinary diet.

The north of England was more thrifty than the south. At the end of
the eighteenth century barley and oaten bread were much used there.
Lancashire people fed largely on oat bread, leavened and unleavened;
the 33rd Regiment, which went by the name of the 'Havercake lads', was
usually recruited from the West Riding where oat bread was in common
use, and was famous for having fine men in its ranks.[470] The
labourers of the north were also noted for their skill in making soups
in which barley was an important ingredient. In many of the southern
counties tea was drunk at breakfast, dinner, and supper by the poor,
often without milk or sugar; but alcoholic liquors were also consumed
in great quantities, the southerner apparently always drinking a
considerable amount, the northerner at rare intervals drinking deep.
The drinking in cider counties seems always to have been worse as far
as quantity goes than elsewhere, and the drink bills on farms were
enormous. Marshall says that in Gloucestershire drinking a gallon
'bottle', generally a little wooden barrel, at a draught was no
uncommon feat; and in the Vale of Evesham a labourer who wanted to be
even with his master for short payment emptied a two-gallon bottle
without taking it from his lips. Even this feat was excelled by 'four
well-seasoned yeomen, who resolved to have a fresh hogshead tapped,
and setting foot to foot emptied it at one sitting.'[471] Yet in the
beer-drinking counties great quantities were consumed; a gallon a day
per man all the year round being no uncommon allowance.[472]

The superior thrift of the north was shown in clothes as well as food,
the midland and southern labourer at the end of the century buying all
his clothes, the northerner making them almost all at home; there were
many respectable families in the north who had never bought a pair of
stockings, coat, or waistcoat in their lives, and a purchased coat was
considered a mark of extravagance and pride.

Perhaps the most remarkable feature of Young's dietary is that green
vegetables are absolutely ignored. The peasant was supposed to need
them as little as in the Middle Ages.

However, Young admits that very few labourers lived as cheaply as
this, and he found the actual ordinary budget for the same family to
be:--