The state of the common people may be judged from the state of those above them. Four-fifths of them, throughout the country, were employed in agriculture; and four shillings a-week were fair agricultural wages. There were few articles, important to the working man, as coffee, tea, sugar, &c., the price of which was not double what it is at present. Beer was much cheaper; and meat was also cheaper; but the latter was even then so dear that hundreds of thousands of families scarcely knew the taste of it. Bread, such as is now given to the inmates of a workhouse, was then seldom seen, even on the trencher of a shopkeeper or of a yeoman. The great majority of the nation lived almost entirely on rye, oats, and barley. Such was the general condition of Samuel Wesley’s Lincolnshire parishioners. We refrain, at present, from any lengthy remarks respecting the religion and morals of the nation. It may be added, however, that the manners of the people were exceedingly coarse and vicious. The discipline of workshops, of schools, and of private families was harsh to an extreme. The implacability of hostile factions was such as, at the present day, we can scarcely conceive. Sufferers by the law experienced but little mercy. Put an offender in the pillory, and it was well if he escaped with his life from the showers of stones and brick-bats thrown at him. Tie him to the cart’s tail, and the crowd pressed round him, begging the hangman to give it to the fellow well, and to make him howl. Fights, compared with which a boxing match is a refined and humane spectacle, were among the favourite diversions of a large part of the town. Multitudes assembled to see gladiators hack each other in pieces; and shouted with delight when one of the combatants lost a finger or an eye. Prisons were hells on earth, and seminaries of every disease and of every crime.