Class C are supported by intermittent earnings; they are a hard-working
people, but have a very bad character for improvidence and
shiftlessness. In Class D the earnings are regular, but at the low rate
of twenty-one shillings or less a week, so none of them rise above
poverty, though none are very poor. D and C together correspond to the
whole of _s_ combined with the lower fifth of _r_. The next class, E, is
the largest of any, and comprises all those with regular standard
earnings of twenty-two to thirty shillings a week. This class is the
recognised field for all forms of co-operation and combination; in short
for trades unions. It corresponds to the upper four-fifths of _r_,
combined with the lower four-fifths of R. It is therefore essentially
the mediocre class, standing as far below the highest in civic worth as
it stands above the lowest class with its criminals and semi-criminals.
Next above this large mass of mediocrity comes the honourable class _F_,
which consists of better paid artisans and foremen. These are able to
provide adequately for old age, and their sons become clerks and so
forth. _G_ is the lower middle class of shopkeepers, small employers,
clerks and subordinate professional men, who as a rule are hard-working,
energetic and sober. F and G combined correspond to the upper fifth of R
and the whole of S, and are, therefore, a counterpart to D and C. All
above G are put together by Mr. Booth into one class H, which
corresponds to our T, U, V and above, and is the counterpart of his two
lowermost classes, A and B. So far, then, as these figures go, civic
worth is distributed in fair approximation to the normal law of
frequency. We also see that the classes _t_, _u_, _v_ and below are
undesirables.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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