22 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



are not open to anything like reasonable doubt or suspicion; 

 and also that the pessimistic views which many entertain as to 

 the future of humanity are often directly due to the exposure of 

 bad social conditions which have been made in course of these 

 investigations with the purpose of amending them. 



During the last quarter of a century the problem of poverty 

 has, however, been complicated by a new factor ; namely, the dis- 

 placement of common labor by machinery, which has been 

 greater than ever before in one generation or in one country. 

 To what extent the numbers of the helpless poor have been in- 

 creased from this cause is not definitely known; but the pop- 

 ular idea is doubtless a greatly exaggerated one. In fact, con- 

 sidering the number and extent of the agencies that have been 

 operative, it is a matter of wonderment that the influences in 

 this direction have not been greater. In the United States little 

 or no evidence has yet been presented that there has been any 

 increase in poverty from this cause.* In London, where the cry 

 of distress is at present especially loud and deep, it is " note- 

 worthy that no measures have yet been taken to ascertain 

 whether that distress is normal or abnormal, and whether it is 

 increasing or decreasing." f But even here the opinion, based 

 on what is claimed to be an exhaustive inquiry, has been ex- 

 pressed that, " although the number of those who are both capa- 

 ble and willing to give fair work for fair pay and are at the 

 same time destitute, is in the aggregate considerable, they yet 

 form but a very small proportion of the unemployed " ; and " that 

 probably not over two per cent of the destitute are persons of 

 good character as well as of average ability in their trades." % 

 The following additional facts, of a more general nature, are 



* According to the Report of the Bureau of Statistics of Labor for Massachusetts 

 for ISSY, the whole number of persons of both sexes in that State, who were unem- 

 ployed at their principal occupation during some part of the year preceding the date of 

 the census enumeration (May 1, 1885), was 241,589, of whom 178,628 were males and 

 69,961 were females. Comparing these figures with those of the population in 1885, 

 viz., 1,941,465, it is found that for every 804 persons there was one person unemployed 

 for some part of the year at his or her principal occupation, the percentage of unem- 

 ployed being greater in the case of males and less in the case of females. These con- 

 clusions, however, throw no light on the number of persons who were unemployed by 

 reasons of displacement by machinery ; and are also likely to mislead, unless sufficient 

 consideration is given to the fact that the number of industrial occupations which only 

 admit of being prosecuted during a portion of the year is in every community very con- 

 siderable. And, as a matter of fact, the investigations in question show that there were 

 only 882 persons representing hardly more than one-third of one per cent of the whole 

 number of the unemployed in this State, who were returned as having been unemployed 

 during the entire twelve months. 



f " The Distress in London," " Fortnightly Review," London, January, 1888. 



X " The Workless, the Thriftless, and the Worthless," " Contemporary Review," 

 London, January, 1888. 



