the march of the laborer upward was retarded by wars, famines, and
"deaths," as their plagues were called. In 1795, one of the darkest of
those dark years, we find the skilled laborer receiving 1 shilling 5-1/4
pence per day (still of fourteen hours in winter, fifteen in summer). He
paid 7 shillings 10 pence for a bushel of wheat and £16 8 shillings for
an ox. This means that he paid five days' (70 hours') labor for his
bushel of wheat and 119 days' (1666 hours') labor for his ox. The ox
was what is technically called "a fair critter."