Beef averaged from 6d. to 9½d. per lb. Mutton ” 6d. to 10d. ” Pork ” 6d. to 1s. ” Lamb at first coming in 10d. to 1s. 2d. ” ” Mid Season 6½d. to 8d. ” Sugar was about 5d. to 5½d. ” Salt ” 20s. per bushel. Store Candles about 1s. 3d. per lb. Whilst on the subject of food, I cannot help chronicling the first notices I have ever met with, of two articles familiar to us—Sardines, and Harvey’s Sauce. The first occurs in an advertisement in the _Morning Post_, August 10, 1801: “SARDINIAS, a Fish cured in a peculiar manner, are highly esteemed as a Sandwich, and deemed of superior flavour to the Anchovy. Sold,” &c. The second is in the _Morning Herald_, February 9, 1804: “HARVEY’S Sauce for Fish, &c. Black Dog, Bedford. Mr. Harvey respectfully informs the Nobility and Gentry, he has appointed Mrs. Elizabeth Lazenby to prepare and sell the above sauce, at her Oil Warehouse, No. 6, Edward’s Street, Portman Square, and that she, alone, is in possession of the original receipt—signed Peter Harvey.” If, however, the times were somewhat gross feeding, yet, early in the century, they also knew the pinch, if not of absolute hunger, yet of that which comes nigh akin to it—scarcity. As we have seen in the History of the decade, bread stuffs were, through bad harvests, very dear; and the strictest attention to economy in their use, even when mixed with inferior substitutes, practised. The unreasoning public laid the whole of the rise in price on the shoulders of the middle-men, or factors; and they were branded with the then opprobrious, but now obsolete, term of “Forestallers and Regraters.” Take one plaintive wail, which appeared in the _Morning Post_ of March 7, 1800: “We are told that one cause of the high price of Corn is, the consequence of the practice of selling by sample, instead of the Corn being fairly brought to market. The middle-man buys the Corn, but desires the farmer to keep it for him, until he wants it; or, in other words, until he finds the price suits his expectations.” This rage against “forestalling” was, of course, very senseless; but it had the advantage of being applied indiscriminately, and to every description of food. Two women at Bristol were imprisoned for “forestalling” a cart load of mackerel; whilst the trial of Waddington for “forestalling” _hops_ is almost a _cause célèbre_. Now, hops could hardly be construed into food; and, after having carefully read his trial, I can but come to the conclusion that he was a very hardly-used man, and was imprisoned for nothing at all.[43] I merely mention his case as a proof of the senseless irritation which the price of food caused upon the unreasoning public.