THE ECONOMIC OUTLOOK. 21 



cliinery epocli/^ there is no evidence that the aggregate of 

 poverty in the world is increasing, bnt much that proves to the 

 contrary. The marked prolongation of human life, or the de- 

 cline in the average death-rate in all countries of high civiliza- 

 tion ; the recognized large increase in such countries in the per 

 capita consumption of all food-products; and the further fact 

 that fluctuations in trade and industry, calamitous as they still 

 are, are less in recent times than they used to be, and less dis- 

 astrous on the whole in their effects on the masses, are absolutely 

 conclusive on this point. Great as has been the depression of 

 business since 1873, there is no evidence that it has yet made any 

 impression on the "stored wealth'' of the people of the great 

 commercial countries ; and that, slow as is the accumulation of 

 capital, a year probably now never passes in which some addi- 

 tion is not made to the previous sum of the world's material re- 

 sources. The recognized tendency of the poor to crowd more 

 and more into the great centers of population — drawn thither, 

 undoubtedly, in no small part by the charities which are there 

 especially to be found, and also by the fact that town labor is 

 better paid than country labor — and the contrasts of social con- 

 ditions, which exhibit themselves more strikingly at such cen- 

 ters than elsewhere, naturally cause ]3opular observation of pov- 

 .erty to continually center, as it were, at its focus of greatest 

 intensity, and creates impressions and induces conclusions that 

 broader and more systematized inspections often fail to sub- 

 stantiate.* Indeed, one thing which the public needs to recog- 

 nize more fully than it does is, that in most of the leading na- 

 tions, systematic and rigid investigations, in respect to most 

 economic subjects and questions, have now been prosecuted for 

 a considerable period by governments and individuals ; that the 

 broad general conclusions deducible therefrom in respect to mor- 

 tality, health, wages, prices, pauperism, population, and the like, 



* A chapter from the recent experience of the city of Brooklyri; New York, in respect 

 to pauperism, affords a very striking illustration of this statement. In the five years from 

 1874 to 1878 inclusive, the number of persons who asked and received outside poor relief 

 from the city authorities increased more than 50 per cent, while the increase in the popu- 

 lation of the city during the same period was less than 14 per cent. The evidence would, 

 therefore, almost seem conclusive that the masses of this city were rapidly becoming 

 poorer and poorer. In the latter year, however, the system of giving outside poor relief 

 was wholly discontinued. It was feared by many that this action would lead to great 

 distress and suffering, and many charitable persons made preparations to meet the demands 

 they expected would be made upon them. Nothing of the kind occurred. Not only 

 was the whole number (46,093) drawing aid from the county wholly stopped, but it was 

 also accompanied by a decreased demand on the public institutions and private relief socie- 

 ties of the city, and a reduction in the number of inmates in the almshouse. The teach- 

 ing of this experience, which has since been elsewhere substantiated, is, therefore, to the 

 effect that what seem to be unmistakable proofs of increasing poverty were merely meth- 

 ods to supplement wages on the gains from mendicancy. 



