But how has this three-fold prosperity been distributed? Have the rich grown richer, and the poor, poorer; or has Fortune taken off her bandage and rewarded honest industry, with a discriminating hand? Have the bulk of the people shared in the productive wealth which thirty-six years have accumulated? In order to answer these questions, Mr. Porter entered into a series of elaborate and interesting calculations, which prove the pleasing fact that the great progressive wealth _has_ been shared among the middle and working classes. He found that the returns of 1812 as well as those of 1848 gave the sums assessed to Income Tax in various classes; and, for the purpose of his examination, he distinguished the incomes thus given:—those between one hundred and fifty pounds and five hundred pounds; those between five hundred pounds and one thousand pounds; incomes between one thousand pounds and two thousand pounds; incomes between two thousand pounds and five thousand pounds; and those above five thousand pounds. Adhering strictly to these distinctions, Mr. Porter perceived, in 1848, a positive increase in incomes between one hundred and fifty and five hundred pounds per annum, of thirteen millions seven hundred thousand pounds, over the incomes assessed in 1812. Between five hundred pounds and one thousand pounds per annum, the increase since 1812 has been five millions. On incomes between one thousand pounds and two thousand pounds, and incomes between two thousand pounds and five thousand pounds, there is an increase of upwards of four millions respectively; while in the highest class, which includes all incomes above five thousand pounds per annum, the increase is found to be no more than eight millions and three-quarters. Comparing the highest with the lowest class, the increase has been greater in the lowest by nearly five millions—or fifty-six per cent. This improvement in circumstances, however, descends to no lower a class of society than persons in the receipt of at least one hundred and fifty pounds per annum. It was necessary to dig a little lower in the strata of private circumstances, in order to show the progress of wealth among the working classes; and Mr. Porter had recourse to the returns from savings’ banks; these being chiefly used by the humbler orders. From data thus derived it was ascertained, that, while the deposits in England, Wales, and Ireland, proportioned to the whole population, amounted in 1831 to twelve shillings and eightpence per head; in 1848 they had risen to twenty shillings and eleven-pence per individual. The largest amount of these savings occurred in 1846; when they reached, in England alone, to more than twenty-six millions and three-quarters, and in the three Kingdoms, to more than thirty-one millions seven hundred thousand pounds, being equal to twenty-four shillings per head on the population of England, Wales, and Ireland, and ten shillings and one penny per head on that of Scotland.[1] Footnote 1: