PRICE OF BREAD AND MEAT.

Oxford Observer, Volume V, Issue V, 21 April 1894, Page 3

PRICE OF BREAD AND MEAT.

Sir, — I quite agree with your correspondent who signs himself Father of a Family that brsad and meat are too dear compared to the price of Flour and Sheep, but I cant agree with him when he hints at the necessity of that nastiest and most unjust system called the Boycot, for that is practically what Father of a Family means by his proposal. I fancy I see the . Butchers and Bakers of Oxford smiling at this insane proposal, knowing as they do that the bulk of their customers are so irregularly employed and the payment of wages so uncertain even when they are, that at least ten per cent of the trademen's profits have to be written off to provide for bad debts and in the face of this tact which I challenge anybody to disprove, you are not likely to find any other tradesmen green enough to give them a run. The statement that good meat can be brought at the yard for a penny a pound is only partly true ; broken mouthed ewes, fat enough for the butcher are invariably sold cheap at this time of year, but it often occurs that the competition for freezers is so keen that country butchers have to purchase small lots at a los3. As to farmers bringing, carcases of. mutton to the saleyards, green as some of them are supposed to be, they are not so verdant as to try to kill the butchers, who often relelve them of a small mob of sheep when both feed and money are scarce. In conclusion allow me to qay, I beleive our Oxford Tradesmen to be just and reasonable men, and will no doubt shortly do the amiable by reducing the price of our tucker, at the same time if fortune sometimes favours them by accident, commonly called a fluke .why begrudge it. . : Allow me to say I am not a farmer a butcher or a baker, but I am one oi: those unfortunate individuals, occupying a subordinate position, under the' public eye and consequently the recipient of many an unkink remark and malicious shot from -those kind of meddlesome" individuals who have the imbecility to beleive that everybody requires reforming but themselves and I am inclined to think if we only tried to give each-other a. lift upwards instead of hinting as many" do at eachothers business and moral defections, we should be a lot better off as a community. ~ Suuin Cuique.