[13] Smith, "Wealth of Nations," edited by J. S. Nicholson, pp. 135 and 280. It is of course true that Adam Smith meant by this merely what is in a way true, that domestic servants earn no profit for their employers. He does not deny (p. 136) that their labour "has a certain value." But, like all the economists who followed him, he is content to dismiss domestic workers with this cursory treatment and to identify labourers with the workers hired for profit-making purposes. [14] See "Principles of Economics" (4th ed.), pp. 192, 772. [15] Marshall, "Principles" (4th ed.), p. 764: "The working classes had then no other beds than loose straw, reeking with vermin and resting on damp floors." [16] Thorold Rogers is a partial exception. [17] _e.g._ Rowntree, "Poverty: a Study of Town Life;" portions of Booth's "Life and Labour of the People;" reports to the Board of Trade on the cost of living. [18] Webb, S. and B., "Industrial Democracy" (cheap edition), p. 674. [19] Marshall, "Principles of Economics," vol. i. p. 159. [20] There is an assumption here which needs perhaps some discussion, _i.e._ that expenditure or consumption of goods can be most conveniently studied on the basis of family life. This is obviously the case with house-room, food, fuel, cleanliness, &c., less so with regard to clothes or recreation; it was truer of the past than of the present, and is truer of the poor than of the rich. In some classes, _e.g._ the professional class, where marriage is commonly delayed and a considerable period may intervene between the end of education and the establishment of a fresh household, it may be necessary to supplement the study of family expenditure by a consideration of the standard of living of unmarried men and women. Attempts, too, must be made to deal with the various forms of institutional life, varying from prisons and workhouses on the one hand to expensive boarding-schools and hotels on the other. But when all these necessary deductions have been made, it remains true that in order to study expenditure we must in the great majority of cases take the family as our basis of investigation. Consumption is organised on a family basis. [21] See Marshall, "Principles," book ii. chap. ii. [22] Ashley, "Economic History," vol. i. part ii. p. 262.