Statement of the Provision for the Poor, and of the Condition of the Labouring Classes in a Considerable Portion of America and Europe: Being the preface to the foreign communications contained in the appendix to the Poor-Law ReportSenior, Nassau William
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Statement of the Provision for the Poor, and of the Condition of the Labouring Classes in a Considerable Portion of America and Europe: Being the preface to the foreign communications contained in the appendix to the Poor-Law Report
Senior, Nassau William
Poor -- Europe; Poor -- United States; Working class
Another and a very interesting portion of the information which the
intelligence and industry of His Majesty’s foreign Ministers and
Consuls have enabled us to submit to the public, consists of the
answers to the questions respecting labourers. In order to facilitate
a comparison between the state of the English and foreign populations,
the questions proposed were in general the same as had been already
answered in England, either by the population returns, or by the
returns to the questions circulated in England by the Poor Law
Commissioners.
The following questions, being 1, 3, 7, and 8, correspond to the
English questions 8, 10, 13, and 14, of the rural queries:--
1. (8 of English questions.) What is the general amount of the wages
of an able-bodied male labourer, by the day, the week, the month, or
the year, with and without provisions, in summer and in winter?
3. (10 of English questions.) What in the whole might an average
labourer, obtaining an average amount of employment, both in day-work
and in piece-work, expect to earn in a year, including harvest work,
and the whole of all his advantages and means of living?
7. (13 of English questions.) What in the whole might a labourer’s
wife and four children, aged 14, 11, 8, and 5 years respectively, (the
eldest a boy), expect to earn in a year, obtaining, as in the former
case, an average amount of employment?
8. (14 of English questions.) Could such a family subsist on the
aggregate earnings of the father, mother, and children; and if so, on
what food?
The following is a digest of the answers from all the agricultural
parishes in England which have given returns to the corresponding
questions circulated by the Poor Law Commissioners:--
Agricultural wages in England.
Q. 8. Weekly wages, with or without beer or cider, in summer and winter?
254 parishes give an average in summer, with beer or cider, of per
week, 10_s._ 4¾_d._
522 parishes give an average in summer, without beer or cider, of per
week, 10_s._ 5½_d._
200 parishes give an average in winter, with beer or cider, of per
week, 9_s._ 2¼_d._
544 parishes give an average in winter, without beer or cider, of per
week, 9_s._ 11¾_d._
Q. 10. What in the whole might an average labourer, obtaining an
average amount of employment, both in day-work and piece-work, expect
to earn in the year, including harvest work, and the value of all his
other advantages and means of living, except parish relief?
Q. 13. What in the whole might a labourer’s wife and four children,
aged 14, 11, 8, and 5 years respectively, (the eldest a boy,) expect to
earn in the year, obtaining, as in the former case, an average amount
of employment?
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