Strona 195 z 2651

If the labouring poor, therefore, could bring up their families

then, they must be much more at their ease now. In the last

century, the most usual day-wages of common labour through the

greater part of Scotland were sixpence in summer, and fivepence

in winter. Three shillings a-week, the same price, very nearly

still continues to be paid in some parts of the Highlands and

Western islands. Through the greater part of the Low country, the

most usual wages of common labour are now eight pence a-day;

tenpence, sometimes a shilling, about Edinburgh, in the counties

which border upon England, probably on account of that

neighbourhood, and in a few other places where there has lately

been a considerable rise in the demand for labour, about Glasgow,

Carron, Ayrshire, etc. In England, the improvements of

agriculture, manufactures, and commerce, began much earlier than

in Scotland. The demand for labour, and consequently its price,

must necessarily have increased with those improvements.