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In the statute of Tumbrel and Pillory, enacted nearly about the

same time, the price of ale is regulated according to every

sixpence rise in the price of barley, from two shillings, to four

shillings the quarter. That four shillings, however, was not

considered as the highest price to which barley might frequently

rise in those times, and that these prices were only given as an

example of the proportion which ought to be observed in all other

prices, whether higher or lower, we may infer from the last words

of the statute: "Et sic deinceps crescetur vel diminuetur per sex

denarios." The expression is very slovenly, but the meaning is

plain enough, "that the price of ale is in this manner to be

increased or diminished according to every sixpence rise or fall

in the price of barley." In the composition of this statute, the

legislature itself seems to have been as negligent as the copiers

were in the transcription of the other.