HARD TIMES IN THE PAST.

Waipawa Mail, Volume XXXVII, Issue 7920, 18 August 1917, Page 4 (Supplement)

HARD TIMES IN THE PAST.

WHfeN A QUARTERN TWO SHILLINGS

To those of us who are pinch of the. e hard times it tome small consolation to be re that our forefathers have equally hard, and have enicrju them smiling, and all the ijv having endured them. A century ago, after the t,. rillll of the long and exhaur*tin<. . with Napoleon, England was (1| face an enemy no less terrible at Poverty and hunger (stalked'a the land, and hundreds of tin were at grips with starvation speech in the House of Coiu lM April 25th 1816, Ixird Xugeni. pitiful picture ol the wiutc 7,j t L try.

“ Lotus go -forth among our jj,, manufactories,” fie said LitterL Jet us see what are the tok<-n : | S diicatiops of peace. Can w<> tr a; among a peasantry without w 0 i consequently witliout bread? farmery unable to pay their r<* among landowners unable tu their revenue? Let us listen to of the country—it is poverty, f r proudest castle to the meanest c Poverty rings in our curs, h our path whichever way wt* turn not in the power of Parliament the cry of want, or to brave tj* of universal bankruptcy.” FOOD RIOT’S. Every day the price of wh. soaring ‘higher and higher until the.end of the year it had ro«; hundred shillings a quarter. T boards of the poor were empty there was little hope of re.pS them with the simplest neces* life. It is small wonder that, desperate bv hunger, they found to their rage and despair in rio many parts of the country, espt» the counties of Norfolk and Cam •even in London it-elf, rebel'ici into flame. At Downham the butcher*, bakers’ shops w ere raided, and acts of outrage were commit!* the rioters were pacified bv the isle that they should have tlu-ir| hall'-a-crown a stone —two-third* regular price—and that Id should receive two shillings a di Ely thirty-four of the rioters tenced to death, and five cf tin actually hanged. Bury. Car and Norwich were the scenes of violent outbreaks; and in lx® City .was raided by a gaunt, «ii mob of hungry men and won plundered the shops until the i arrived and dispersed them. And not only was it tin* pa suffered. Even comparatively do, middles las* famili.r, had the difficulty in keeping their lard* plied. The price of bread wen; i.s Bd, -and in some places m- quartern loaf—the equivalu shilling a pound to-day. A sioj thus took an entire dryV.pay fm ourer! Inferior tea, ad'ultmti dried blackthorn or willow lean 4s a pound'—a price wbkh, lio was trifling compared with il» pound charged for it a centun in tjie days when ladies of f. 4 Liiidon sipped the beverag at ing’s famous -hop at Is f«i i

Coffee wa, f|>kl wholesale at hundredweight, and the LwH price was 2s a pound. Sugar, ol the supply was very limited, w a pound; currants from 9d to 1 Is. and all other art-ick,' of loj similar reale of cost. COSTLY CLOTHING. Nor were these excessive <*bi any means confined to the conn the larder, for ti’ie dnujxst burning -was sold retail at (is a. the roughest boots cost from £ll pair; wool \w\k 9s 2d a pound; waa charged for a suit of elotlw to-day would lie considered dear that amount. To lonn a proper estimate d figures it is important to oonsii a century ago wages were prcM than half-of what they ire t«wl the value of money was roughl as great. And incomes, r« small ad they were, were bun* taxes of which, happily, we b experience. It ii true that the inconi-; t«u had - been 2s in the £ on oil exceeding £209 a year, was wit for a time in 1816: but cona over a thousand articles of a>mn had to pay oppressive duties till cheqii'tr- For every ton of of £2B a ton was exacted; «» copy of a newspaper had to " ,Bl 4d to the national pur .*. Ever from peer to peasant, was at oo taxi'd when lie married, father, died, or remained un* taxes ranging from £SO 4s ior •' who turned benedict to fl. nnd' crown for the man whose im ol exprcissed in shilling* a week. The unhappy householder d so-called “ good old days ’ had heavily for the very light that i l through his twindow-pines, watch that lie wore, and for c Tfl that told him the time of dayand his glove*, powder lor lu> j his ha ir; the female servants * ed on Aiim, the horse he rode.» from which, he drank, the me® l doctor .supplied—all paid tw' r to the Exchequer. . . In fact, as Sydiiiep Small # there were “taxes upon which enter*) the mouth, or back, or is placed underfoot; thing pleasant to see. h-'ar, >' or. taste; oil ermine that deon" .Judge and the nope that W ( ri.iis.aal: oil the brass naj* coffin and the ribands of the l*"