464 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



six months' boarding of seventeen men and eight Avomen (three serv- 

 ants), the men being engaged in arduous mechanical employments, 

 and consuming comparatively large quantities of meat, the daily cost 

 of the subsistance of each individual was twenty-eight cents per day. 

 In the jails of Massachusetts the average daily cost of the food of the 

 prisoners and of the employes of the prisons for the year 1883 — bread 

 of the best quality, good meats, vegetables, tea, rye-coffee, sugar, etc., 

 being furnished liberally — was a trifle over fifteen cents per day for 

 each person.* 



In one of the best conducted almshouses of Connecticut, the con- 

 dition of which has been carefully investigated by the writer, the 

 sum of 87,000 per annum, exclusive of interest on the plant and 

 extraordinary repairs, is believed to be amply sufficient to maintain 

 an average of sixty-five inmates, mainly adults, in a building of 

 modern construction, scrupulously clean, thoroughly warmed and 

 ventilated, with an abundance of good and varied food, clothing and 

 medical attendance, or at an average daily expenditure of about thirty 

 cents per capita. 



The evidence, therefore, is conclusive, "that an ample and varied 

 supply of attractive and nutritious food can be fui-nished in the east- 

 ern portions of the United States — and probably in Great Britain also 

 — at a cost not exceeding twenty cents per day, and for a less sum in 

 the western sections of the country, provided that it is judiciously pur- 

 chased and economically served " ; and the legitimate inference from 

 these results is, that the problem of greatest importance to be solved in 

 the United States and in Great Britain, in the work of ameliorating 

 the condition of the honest and industrious poor is (as Mr. Atkinson 

 has expressed it), to find out how to furnish them with ample and 

 excellent food as cheaply as it is supplied to the inmates of our 

 prisons and almshouses.! 



The facts in regard to the general increase in the deposits of sav- 



* These results arc due to the laborious and careful investigations of Mr. Edward 

 Atkinson, of Massachusetts, and were first published in 1884, under the title of "The 

 Distribution of Products." Together with the results of similar investigations conducted 

 by Mr. Robert Giffen, of England, they rank among the most important and valuable 

 contributions ever made to economic and social science. 



f The following results of one of the first and most recent efforts to practically carry 

 out this idea are especially worthy of recording in connection with this discussion, and in 

 the highest degree encouraging : Early in the fall of 1887 a number of public-spirited, 

 philanthropic ladies in the city of New York, in charge of a large working-girl's club, de- 

 teruiined to try the experiment of founding and managing a working-girl's boarding- 

 hou.-^e, with a view of ascertaining at what cost a good and varied subsistence and good 

 lodging could be furnished to young women dependent upon their own exertions in a 

 great city for a livelihood, and to whom, by reason of comparatively small incomes, the 

 practice of rigid economy was imperative. For this purpose an attractive and suitable 

 house on a good street was taken at an annual rent of §1,000, and a matron engaged 

 who was thoroughly conversant with the art of advantageously buying and preparing and 

 serving food. As was to be expected, some little time was required to put the experiment 



