Horse-racing was
given rules. On Sunday, there was no singing, music playing,
dancing, or games, but the Bible was read aloud, prayers were
said, and hymns were sung. Sabbath-breakers were fined by
magistrates. Men often spent Sunday in a tavern.
In general, commodity prices were stable. But when harvests were
poor, such as in 1709 when there was famine, and between 1765 and
1775, bread prices rose. The price of wheat in London, which since
1710 had been between 25s. and 45s., rose to 66s. in 1773. Then
the poor engaged in food riots. These riots were often accompanied
by burning; looting of grain mills, shops, and markets; and mob
violence. The English economy was so dependent on foreign trade,
which had trebled since the 1710s, that the slightest disturbance
in the maritime trade threatened the English with starvation. In
many localities the men in need of parochial relief were sent
around from one farm to another for employment, part of their
wages being paid from the poor rates. The poor often went from
parish to parish seeking poor relief. Settled people tended to
fear wandering people. Parishes sought to keep down their poor
rates by devices such as removing mothers in labor lest the infant
be born in the parish. So a statute was passed that a child born
to a wandering woman may not have the place of birth as his
settlement, but takes the same settlement as his mother.
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