Seite 197 von 2651

He appears to have enquired very carefully into this subject {See

his scheme for the maintenance of the poor, in Burn's History of

the Poor Laws.}. In 1688, Mr Gregory King, whose skill in

political arithmetic is so much extolled by Dr Davenant, computed

the ordinary income of labourers and out-servants to be fifteen

pounds a-year to a family, which he supposed to consist, one with

another, of three and a half persons. His calculation, therefore,

though different in appearance, corresponds very nearly at bottom

with that of Judge Hales. Both suppose the weekly expense of such

families to be about twenty-pence a-head. Both the pecuniary

income and expense of such families have increased considerably

since that time through the greater part of the kingdom, in some

places more, and in some less, though perhaps scarce anywhere so

much as some exaggerated accounts of the present wages of labour

have lately represented them to the public.