Page:A short history of social life in England.djvu/324

 them the current news from India; here they would learn the progress of America's successful struggle for independence; here they could discuss the small doings of their neighbours and learn what passengers had gone by in the weekly coach. They smoked smuggled tobacco and drank smuggled tea, both of which commodities were expensive and heavily taxed. Their staple food was rye bread and "stony cheese, too hard to bite," or coarse bread soaked in skim milk. All was as yet in a state of rural simplicity—

These country folk still dressed in English woollen materials, woven on the spot Articles of clothing often descended from father to son, and it was not uncommon to find on the heads of country folk hats that had been fashionable in the days of Charles II.

But changes in the agricultural world were at hand. The introduction of the field turnip and an improvement in stock breeding brought about a complete revolution in the farming province. Waste lands were henceforth reclaimed and brought under cultivation, low-lying meadows