governors. Unskilled labor is paid more than the teachers of our youth
receive. The cost of living was never higher in the history of mankind.

How illuminating to turn from this picture to that of Dante's age. Then
in Florence, a bushel of wheat cost about fifteen cents, a carpenter
could buy a broad ax for five cents, a saw for three cents, a plane
for four cents, a chisel for one cent. The average daily wage of a
woolworker was about thirty-six cents. In view of the high purchasing
power of money in Dante's age, the fact that he borrowed at least seven
hundred and fifty seven and a half golden florins, a debt that was not
paid until after his death, leads one to think that he must have been
regarded by his contemporaries as prodigal in the use of money. His
financial difficulties must have given him an uneasy conscience for he
insists repeatedly on the wickedness of prodigality. In fact he makes
the abuse of money on the part either of a miser or of a spendthrift a
sin against the social order punishable according to the gravity of the
offence in Hell or Purgatory.

To return to the matter of prices in Dante's day. In England a goose
could be bought for two and a half pence. A stall-fed ox commanded
twenty-four shillings while his fellow brought up on grass was sold for
sixteen shillings. A fat hog, two years old,--and this is interesting to
us who pay seventy-five cents a pound for bacon--a fat hog two years old
cost only three shillings four pence and a fat sheep shorn, one shilling
and two pence. A gallon of oysters was purchasable for two pence, a
dozen of the best soles for three pence. A yard of broadcloth cost only
one shilling one pence, a pair of shoes four pence. These figures of
English money are taken from an act of Edward III of England who was
born seven years after Dante's death. Parliamentarian enactment under
the same king fixed a table of wages.