The north of England was more thrifty than the south.  At the end of the eighteenth century barley and oaten bread were much used there.  Lancashire people fed largely on oat bread, leavened and unleavened; the 33rd Regiment, which went by the name of the ‘Havercake lads’, was usually recruited from the West Riding where oat bread was in common use, and was famous for having fine men in its ranks.[470] The labourers of the north were also noted for their skill in making soups in which barley was an important ingredient.  In many of the southern counties tea was drunk at breakfast, dinner, and supper by the poor, often without milk or sugar; but alcoholic liquors were also consumed in great quantities, the southerner apparently always drinking a considerable amount, the northerner at rare intervals drinking deep.  The drinking in cider counties seems always to have been worse as far as quantity goes than elsewhere, and the drink bills on farms were enormous.  Marshall says that in Gloucestershire drinking a gallon ‘bottle’, generally a little wooden barrel, at a draught was no uncommon feat; and in the Vale of Evesham a labourer who wanted to be even with his master for short payment emptied a two-gallon bottle without taking it from his lips.  Even this feat was excelled by ’four well-seasoned yeomen, who resolved to have a fresh hogshead tapped, and setting foot to foot emptied it at one sitting.’[471] Yet in the beer-drinking counties great quantities were consumed; a gallon a day per man all the year round being no uncommon allowance.[472]

The superior thrift of the north was shown in clothes as well as food, the midland and southern labourer at the end of the century buying all his clothes, the northerner making them almost all at home; there were many respectable families in the north who had never bought a pair of stockings, coat, or waistcoat in their lives, and a purchased coat was considered a mark of extravagance and pride.

Perhaps the most remarkable feature of Young’s dietary is that green vegetables are absolutely ignored.  The peasant was supposed to need them as little as in the Middle Ages.

However, Young admits that very few labourers lived as cheaply as this, and he found the actual ordinary budget for the same family to be:—­

L s. d.

Food, per week, 7s. 6d.; per year 19 10 0
Beer " 1s. 6d. " 3 18 0
Soap and candles 1 5 0
Rent 1 10 0
Clothes 2 10 0
Fuel 2 0 0
Illness, &c. 1 0 0
Infant 2 12 0
----------
L34 5 0
==========

This, with the same Income as before, left him with a surplus of L3 10s. 0d.; but as it was not likely his wife could work all the year round, or that both his eldest children should be boys, it appears that his expenses must often have exceeded his income.  This being so, it is not surprising that he was often drunken and reckless, and ready to come on the parish for relief.  To labour incessantly, often with wife and boys, to live very poorly, yet not even make both ends meet, was enough to kill all spirit in any one.