io THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



tion, if the expenditure for food and drink is unduly large, then 

 either clothing or shelter must be restricted ; a small part of the 

 waste of food, on which half the income is spent, might, if saved, 

 enable the family to double the expenditure for a dwelling-place. 

 It follows that the most difficult question with which practical 

 reformers are called upon to deal, viz., that of providing more 

 ample and comfortable dwellings, may be solved by altering the 

 conversion of the present product, even if that may not be in- 

 creased, so that what is now in part wasted on food and drink 

 may be spent for better shelter, and yet the family may be more 

 fully nourished than at present. I do not claim absolute accuracy 

 for the following proportion of expenses in workingmen's fami- 

 lies, but I am quite sure they are near enough to the mark to serve 

 as an example. 



In a family of five adults, or of four adults and two children 

 ten or under, making an average family of five persons, in which 

 one half the income is spent for food and fuel, twenty-five cents 

 a day per adult being spent for food, the corresponding average 

 expenditure per adult : 



For clothing will be V to 9 cents. 



For liquor it may be 2 to 4 " 



For sundries it will be about 5 " 



And the remainder for rent or shelter, if no liquor is used 9 to 1 1 " 



If liquor is used 1 to 9 " 



Now, I think it is very safe to put the waste of food material 

 at twenty per cent, or five cents a day ; if this misspent force and 

 one half the average cost of liquor, or two cents a day, could be 

 converted into shelter that is to say, to providing a more ample 

 dwelling by either buying or leasing it would suffice to enlarge 

 the present quarters by one half to three fourths. Five cents a 

 day per adult comes to $1,000,000,000 or more a year, counting two 

 children of ten or under as equal to one adult. But the greater 

 benefit which would come from a true art of preparing food would 

 consist in the increase of the productive force of the community, 

 so that the provision for dwelling might be increased both abso- 

 lutely and relatively. I might add another treatise to this, on the 

 waste of force in bad building and from the common practice 

 of what I have named the art of combustible architecture ; but 

 time will not serve. Suffice it that the product of this nation is 

 more than ample for the abundant subsistence, the adequate 

 shelter, and the complete clothing of every family in it ; yet we 

 witness want in the midst of plenty, .because we waste enough to 

 support another nation at the standard of French economy and 

 thrift, especially in the matter of food. 



I may now venture to call your attention to some of the very 

 subtile points which are brought out by the statistical investiga- 



