Page:The Effects of Civilisation on the People in European States.djvu/27

Rh To begin, therefore, with them. The average wages of a labourer appear to have been about eight shillings a-week, previous to the few late years, more or less, according to the price of provisions in different nations. We will suppose that this labourer has a wife and three children. The wife, if she keeps the house clean, free from vermin, washes, makes and mends the husband's and children's clothes, dresses their victuals, &c., will not, or ought not to have any time to add anything to the earnings of the husband. But we will suppose that she does, to the amount of two shillings per week; which makes their income ten shillings a-week.

Whether ten shillings a-week will furnish a proper quantity of flesh-meat, bread, flour, milk, butter, cheese, and clothes, bedding, fuel, soap, candles, salt, &c., I will leave to the reader to form his own conjectures on; for calculations made in this matter must be in a great measure arbitrary, and of course unsatisfactory. I shall only observe, that Judge Hale, above a century ago, after having made a more diligent inquiry than any body else seems to have done, judged ten shillings a-week as little as a family could be supported on in England at that time, at the price things then were.

But I think a general argument may be