Trove Tuesday: Only two pounds reward?

Today’s snippet from Trove – two notices in the Maitland Mercury of 24 January 1857 – makes me wonder about the relative value of grey horses and 10 year old boys at that tiime. Why was the reward for the horse set at three pounds while information about the boy was only set at two pounds?

Perhaps the horse was particularly fast or was it that George Standing, one of my maternal 2 x great grandfathers, was particularly bad? Unfortunately I will never know the answer to those questions; just as I will never know the reason why the young boy absconded while at the Peel River..

George Standing was born on 13 November 1846. His parents were Henry Standon/Standing (1814-1872), a former convict from Sussex, England and Susan Trunley (1826-1907), an immigrant from Dublin, Ireland.

George lived in the Patrick’s Plains area near Singleton, NSW until his death on 3 February 1897.