Fly where the man is that I love best.”

The following extracts from an “inventarye of all the goods and chattels of Peter Birket, late of Borrands,” taken after his decease in 1661, will furnish a pretty accurate idea of the monetary worth of certain articles of farming stock at that time:—“One outshoote of hay, £1 6s. 8d.; one stack of hay without dores, 10s.; one scaffold of hay, 10s.; one mare and one colt, £3; five geese, 4s.; 13 sheepe, £3; one cock and five hens, 2s.; one calfe, 10s.; two heiffers, £3; one heiffer, £2; one cow, £2 10s.; another cow, £3 10s.” Whether this gentleman was a fair representative of his class or not we are unable to say, but if so, the small farmers of Lancashire, to whom he appears to have belonged, were not over indulgent in articles of dress or comfort, for the whole of his wearing apparel was valued at no more than £1, whilst his bedding realised only 5s.

In 1725 the Lancashire justices arranged and ordered that the rate of wages in all parts of this county should be:—

A bailiff in husbandry, or chief hind£60s.0d.per year,with board.
A chief servant in husbandry, able to mow or sow500””
A common servant in husbandry of 24 years of age and upwards400””
A man servant from 20 to 24 years of age3100””
A man servant from 16 to 20 years of age2100””
The best woman servant, able to cook2100””
Dairy man, or lower servant200””
Woman servant under 16 years of age1100””
The best of millers500””

They also appointed the hours of labour for those hired by the day to be, between the middle of March and the middle of September, from five in the morning until half-past seven in the evening, and during the remainder of the year from sunrise to sunset, resting half-an-hour at breakfast, an hour at dinner, and half-an-hour at “drinking,” as the meal corresponding to our “tea” was termed. “In the summer half,” added the magisterial mandate, “the labourers may sleep each day half-an-hour; else for every hour’s absence to defaulk a penny; and every Saturday afternoon or eve of a holiday, that they cease to work, is to be accounted but half a day.” The day wages, as fixed by the same authorities, were:—

The best kind of husbandry labourer12d.without,and6d.with board.
An ordinary labourer10d.”and5d.”
A male haymaker10d.”and6d.”
A woman haymaker7d.”and3d.”
A mower15d.”and9d.”
A man shearer12d.”and6d.”
A woman shearer10d.”and6d.”
Hedgers, Ditchers, Threshers, and persons employed in task work10d.”and6d.”
Masons, Joiners, Plumbers, Tilers, Slaters, Coopers, and Turners12d.”and6d.”
Master workman, acting as foreman14d.without board.

From 1660 to 1690, the average price of mutton was 2d. per pound; from 1706 to 1730, 2½d.; and from 1730 to 1760, 3d. per pound. The prices of beef, veal, and lamb in 1710, were respectively 1⅒d., 2⅗d., and 2⁹⁄₁₀d., per pound.

During the eighteenth and earlier part of the nineteenth centuries there was perhaps no pastime more popular amongst the adult members of all classes than the callous sport of cock-fighting; every village and hamlet in the Fylde had its pit, where mains were held at all times and seasons. The following were the rules pretty generally adopted in this neighbourhood for the regulation of the contests:—

“1.—To begin the main by fighting the lighter pair of cocks which fall in match first, proceeding upwards towards the end, that every lighter pair may fight earlier than those that are heavier.

“2.—In matching, with relation to the battles, after the cocks of the main are weighed, the match bills are to be compared.