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Two shillings, therefore, was the price of two bushels and near

two pecks of wheat, which in the present times, at three

shillings and sixpence the bushel, would be worth eight shillings

and ninepence. For a yard of this cloth the poor servant must

have parted with the power of purchasing a quantity of

subsistence equal to what eight shillings and ninepence would

purchase in the present times. This is a sumptuary law, too,

restraining the luxury and extravagance of the poor. Their

clothing, therefore, had commonly been much more expensive.