79 o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



ion we find grouped the " noteworthy facts concerning the community 

 or the family," and here the subdivisions are allowed to vary accord- 

 ing to the exigencies of each case. 



The mere scrap of a hotel bill found in Falstaff's pocket tells much 

 concerning the character of the " valiant knight " ; and when we re- 

 member that in these budgets of expenses and receipts which Le Play 

 prepared there is apparently nothing omitted which can throw light 

 on the character and condition of the family, we see how suggestive 

 and useful such a system of social and industrial photography might 

 become in the hands of skillful workmen. All sources of receipts are 

 enumerated, including the house-work of the women, and whatever 

 work may be performed by the children. The production of values 

 in use is reckoned at its estimated worth, but the actual receipts and 

 disbursements of money are kept separate. The classification of the 

 expenses is especially suggestive. The expenses for provisions are 

 classed under seven heads, beginning with cereals and concluding with 

 fermented liquors. Next come the expenses for dwelling and the in- 

 cidentals of heat and light ; then follows the expenditure for clothing ; 

 while after this are placed the items of expense for religious purposes, 

 for the instruction of the children, for alms, for recreations and festi- 

 vals, and for health service. The list of expenses is concluded with 

 the outlays necessitated by the work done, by the interest on debts, by 

 taxes, and by insurance. When, in looking over these systematized 

 account-books, we find that a certain Parisian tailor spends two hun- 

 dred and ninety-five francs for alcoholic liquors, besides six hundred 

 and eight francs spent in hobnobbing at the cabaret, lost at gaming, 

 etc., we are not surprised to find that he spends nothing for religion, 

 but thirty-four francs for education, twenty francs in charity, and 

 saves nothing whatever. The facts taken together tell us very plainly 

 of his character, and, remembering that Le Play made it a point to 

 study none but typical families, we are brought face to face with some 

 " temperance statistics " of a most suggestive kind. We may also see 

 at a glance the difference in economic condition between the semi- 

 nomadic herdsmen of the Ural Mountains where a family consumes 

 seventy-eight per cent of the products of its own labor and the con- 

 dition of a watchmaker of Geneva, who, assisted at his trade by his 

 wife, consumes only two per cent of the result of their joint labor 

 without exchanging it for money. With the herdsmen the problem 

 of the distribution of the fruits of labor is unimportant, but with the 

 mechanic it is all-important. 



With this patient thoroughness Le Play studied some three hun- 

 dred families in various parts of Europe ; and it was while perform- 

 ing this prodigious work that his methods and theories took shape. 

 In 1855 was published the first edition of his greatest work, " Les 

 Ouvriers Europeens." It contained thirty-six (afterward fifty-seven) 

 of the most representative monographs. In January, 1856, the French 



