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| | T.B. Macaulay - History of England, Vol. I, Ch. III (part 7) |
 | | The great criterion of the state of the common people is the amount of their wages; and as four-fifths of the common people were, in the seventeenth century, employed in agriculture, it is especially important to ascertain what were then the wages of agricultural industry. |
 | | On the whole, therefore, it seems reasonable to conclude that, in the reign of Charles the Second, the ordinary wages of the peasant did not exceed four shillings a week; but that, in some parts of the kingdom, five shillings, six shillings, and, during the summer months, even seven shillings were paid. |
 | | It ought to be observed that Firmin was an eminent philanthropist. |
| www.strecorsoc.org /macaulay/m03g.html (6070 words) |
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