Moreover it has often been pointed out that the relative comfort of any class can be better ascertained if we consider the earnings of the family rather than those of the individual[471]. This was a period in which women could easily obtain work in spinning and when children were apprenticed at an early age, and so required little support from their parents. For these reasons it seems likely that the labourer of the reign of Charles I. would be better off than the amount of his wages would lead us to suppose, and this estimate is confirmed by the scale of diet fixed for the boys in the Children's Hospital of Norwich in 1632. [471] W. Cunningham, _Growth of English Industry and Commerce_, Vol. II. p. 688. The boys in the hospital were between the ages of ten and fourteen. For dinner they were always to have six ounces of bread and a pint of beer: three days in the week they had also a pint of pottage and six ounces of beef, and on the remaining four an ounce of butter and two of cheese. For supper they had always six ounces of bread, a pint of beer, an ounce of butter and two of cheese, and for breakfast every day three ounces of bread, half an ounce of butter and half a pint of beer[472]. As this represents the food of the destitute orphans of Norwich it is not likely to be much better than the usual standard of the poorest class, and seems to compare very favourably with the food of a boy in the same class in our own time. The ordinary standard of living thus does not appear to be miserable, but the poor must have suffered terribly, if there had been no exceptional relief, whenever there was no work for them to do, and when corn was double the usual price. [472] This table of food was approved by the city rulers on 30th June, 1632 (Norwich Court Books). The keeper of the orphanage was sold wheat and rye from the granary at 12_s._ a combe and was given £4. 6_s._ 8_d._ for each child every year. He had also their work and certain allowances for their clothing. It is these fluctuations that were the chief source of misery, and by lessening their effect the scarcity measures of the time were of enormous importance to the whole of the labouring class. But relief in times of emergency was afforded to the needy in other times of exceptional distress. [Sidenote: 5. Provision of fuel for the poor in Winter.]