COST OF LIVING
COMPARISON WITH EARLIER PERIODS.
Housewives complaining of the high cost of living may be interested to compare past prices.
In England, 1561-1570, a bushel of wheat cost Is lOd; a pound of beef about lid; fowl the same; a pound of butter, 3d! a pound of sugar, 9d; 100 eggs, 2s lOd. In the 18th century in Ireland (between 1779-1781), butter was s:;d per lb; sugar, 8d; meat—beef and mutton. 2}d per lb; pork, 2 : ;d; fowl. 6d each; chickens, 2d. A turkey could be bought for lOd; a goose for Bd. A hundred oysters cost Is, and 200 herrings 2d. Salmon was 2d per lb. Coffffee, Is lOd, and tea (green), 11s.
In the hungry 'forties, a 211 b loaf in England cost 6d out here. Meat was unprocurable for many. The poor could only afford it once a month. Sugar varied from 5d to 8d still, and the cheapest tea was 4s per lb. A working man’s wages were from 6s to 10s per week then.
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Wairarapa Times-Age, 7 December 1938, Page 11
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171COST OF LIVING Wairarapa Times-Age, 7 December 1938, Page 11
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