last market-day from 12s. to 14s. per quarter; meat, from 2-1/2d. to
3d. per pound; fowls, and other kinds of poultry, had no price, being
mostly carried home. I wish a scheme was set on foot, to run many such
articles to London by land-carriage; there is plenty here.' In the
same paper, the prices of grain in London are given: wheat, 36s. to
41s.; barley, 22s. to 25s.; oats, 16s. to 20s.

Recently, the Newcastle papers, led on by the _Chronicle_, have been
making strenuous efforts to extend the French coal-trade, but such
exertions formed no part of the 'wisdom of our ancestors.' The number
for June 15, 1765, informs us that 'some sinister designs for
exporting a very considerable quantity of coals to France and
elsewhere, have lately been discovered and prevented.' Sturdy Britons
had then far too much hatred for 'our natural enemies' to wish to
exchange aught but hostilities with them. About the same time, we
learn that 'clubs of young gentlemen of fortune' had come to the
magnanimous resolve, 'to toast no lady who has so much inconsideration
as to lavish her money away in French fopperies, to the detriment of
her own country.'

The style of advertising then in vogue occasionally gave the paper a
somewhat pictorial appearance. Cockfighting was in great force, and
the public announcements relative to this barbarous sport were
invariably headed by a portraiture of a couple of game-birds facing
each other with a most belligerent aspect; while the numerous
advertisements of horses 'stolen or strayed,' were embellished by a
representation of the supposed thief, mounted on the missing animal,
which was forced into a breakneck pace, while Satan himself, _in
propria persona_, was perched on the crupper, in an excited and
triumphant attitude. In the local paragraphs, we note several