22 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



the erection of a new dam. Though the embankment of a railway ran 

 nearly parallel with the stream, and trains passed backward and for- 

 ward daily, they seemed in no way disturbed, and worked steadily on 

 until the water had risen a foot or more. The track-master, observing 

 that this endangered the line — for the embankment had been utilized 

 as a wing of the dam — ordered the water drawn off. But the follow- 

 ing day the beavers had repaired the damage done them, and the water 

 was at its former height. Again and again and again was the dam 

 cut through, and as often would it be repaired. All in all, it was cut 

 and repaired some fifteen or twenty times ere the beavers were suffi- 

 ciently discouraged to abandon their attempts. 



THE PKOGEESS OF THE WOEKING-CLASSES IN THE 

 LAST HALF-CENTURY.* 



Br EOBEET GIFFEN, LL. D., 



PEESIDENT OF THE STATISTICAL SOCIETY. 



WE are carried back on this occasion very naturally to the origin 

 of the society, by an impending event which now casts its 

 shadow before — our approaching jubilee, which we may hope will be 

 worthily celebrated. On such an occasion, I believe the subject on 

 which I propose to address you to-night will be not unsuitable — a 

 review of the official statistics bearing on the jDrogress of the working- 

 clatises — the masses of the nation — in the last half-century. If you 

 go back to the early records of the society, you will find that one of 

 the leading objects of its founders was to obtain means by which to 

 study the very question I have selected. Happily we have still with 

 us one or two honored members associated with the early history of 

 the society — I may mention Dr. Guy and Sir Rawson Rawson — who 

 will bear me out in what I have stated. I may remind you, moreover, 

 that one of the founders of the society was Mr. Porter, of the Board 

 of Trade, whose special study for years was much the same, as his 

 well-known book, " The Progress of the Nation," bears witness ; and 

 that in one of the earliest publications of the society, a volume pre- 

 ceding the regular issue of the " Journal," he has left a most interest- 

 ing account of what he hoped might be effected by means of statistics 

 in studying the subject I have put before you, or the more general 

 subject of the " Progi'ess of the Nation." In asking you, therefore, 

 to look for a little at what statistics tell us of the progress of the great 

 masses of the nation, I feel that I am selecting a subject which is con- 



* Inaugural address before the London Statistical Society, read November 20, 1883. 

 Mr. Gladstone writes to Mr. Giffen December 28, 1883 : " I have read with great pleasure 

 your ma£teiily paper. It is probably, in form and in substance, the best reply to George." 



