Adam Smith：The Wealth of Nations, Book I, Chapter XI, Paragraph 634

The same order of people are, by the same law, prohibited from wearing hose, of which the price should exceed fourteen-pence the pair, equal to about eight-and-twenty pence of our present money. But fourteen-pence was in those times the price of a bushel and near two pecks of wheat; which in the present times, at three and sixpence the bushel, would cost five shillings and threepence. We should in the present times consider this as a very high price for a pair of stockings to a servant of the poorest and lowest order. He must however, in those times, have paid what was really equivalent to this price for them.

Source： https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3300
Locator：Book I, Chapter XI, paragraph 634 · Verified：2026-10-19 · Verification：Exact match

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