AN ANCIENT DIARY.

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3044, 3 April 1917, Page 3

AN ANCIENT DIARY.

: - v COST OF. LIVING IN 1856. "Tlio "increased cost of living" is a topio which is so persqpally interesting to ovory class of tho community that all light upon its perploxitics is welcome! Old diaiies and ledgers cast oblique sidelight!* on tlio problems of to-duy through tho medium of the facts of yesterday, and we fall to comparing tho household bills of 1856 with those of 1017. For example, within tho leather-bound, brass-claspcd pages of one such diary of 1856 wo find the wages of a day labourer eel. down at 65., wliilo weekly wages varied from £1 ss. to £1 16s. Somo idea of the spending power of those same wages is embodied in tlio following list of priccs of household necessaries. Tea at 9d. to Is. per 111. was doubtless in groat, demand, hut sugar must surely have been a luxury at 6id. or 7d. per lb. , Butter at Is. 3d. per lb. was probably used with care, dripping was no doubt familiar to tbo palato even for "grownups," and tho children's "pieces" were surely spread with jam. Flour at that timo cost from 17b. to £1 4s. per hundred lbs., sometimes rising as high as 30s. per lumdred lbs. A sheep cost cost 125., mutton was 6d. per lb., and lamb 7d. The purchase of-six fowls is entered at 12s. 6d.,j and a pig at £1 10s. ; another pig entered at £3 10s. shows a Considerable difference in the pigsl The entry of £6 10s. as the price of a heifer shows that prices Tor cattle were good, while the mention of lib. of candles at; 9d. conjures up a vision of the tallow "dips" which made thte ordinary uso of the timo;. real candles at 9d. probably being for the guests'- .room, or sitting-room. Ono feature strikes the reader very strongly, viz., tho absence of entries for 'luxuries, no mention being made of them. It was only, tho simple necessities of a simple life which had to bo found from the modest wages of the time. Coal, which is rarely mentioned, is quoted variously at £2 25., and "large coal" £3, while tho rare entry of "cask of beer" lis. 4d. is- a peg on which can hang no theories, for tho simple reason that tho size is left to the imagination. But it' was evidently a rare luxury in those-days of the simple life in New Zealand. It is hoped that many such ancient ledgers, dikries, and old accounts, connected with the cost of labour, materials, etc., may find their final rest-ing-place' liko this . ancient ledger, in tho National Historical Collection; Early photographs, sketches, and plans of now popular centres will also bo full of "value and. interest.