tea (84 lb.) for 20 pounds, a trifle under 5/0 a lb.; the retail price was
6/0--it was a great saving; and up to the time of our departure brown
sugar cost 7 1/2d., and loaf sugar 10d. It is no wonder that these
things were accounted luxuries. When a decent Scotch couple in South
Australia went out to a station in the country in the forties and
received their stores, the wife sat down at her quarter-chest of tea
and gazed at her bag of sugar, and fairly wept to think of her old
mother across the ocean, who had such difficulty in buying an ounce of
tea and a pound of sugar. My mother even saw an old woman buy 1/4oz. of
tea and pay 11/2d. for it, and another woman buy 1/4lb. of meat.

We kept three maids. The cook got 8 pounds a year, the housemaid 7 pounds,
and the nursemaid 6 pounds, paid half-yearly, but the summer half-year was
much better paid than the winter, because there was the outwork in the
fields, weeding and hoeing turnips and potatoes, and haymaking. The
winter work in the house was heavier on account of the fires and the
grate cleaning, but the wages were less. My mother gave the top wages
in the district, and was considerate to her maids, but I blush yet to
think how poorly those good women who made the comfort of my early home
were paid for their labours. You could get a washerwoman for a
shilling or 1/6 a day, but you must give her a glass of whisky as well
as her food. You could get a sewing girl for a shilling or less,
without the whisky. And yet cheap as sewing was it was the pride of the
middle-elms women of those days that they did it all themselves at
home. Half of the time of girls' schools was given to sewing when
mother was taught. Nearly two hours a day was devoted to it in my time.

A glass of whisky in Scotland in the thirties cost less than a cup of
tea. I recollect my father getting a large cask of whisky direct from
the distillery which cost 6/6 a gallon, duty paid. A bottle of inferior