IMPROVEMENT OF THE HUMAN BREED. 527 



contrary, their frontiers blend, and this justifies me in taking slight 

 liberties with his figures. His class A consists of criminals, semi- 

 criminals, loafers, and some others, who are in number at the rate of 1 

 per cent in all London — that is, loo per 10,000. or nearly three times 

 as many as the v class; they therefore include the whole of the v and 

 spread upward into the //. His class B consists of very poor persons 

 who subsist on casual earnings, many of whom are inevitably poor from 

 shiftlessness. idleness, or drink. The numbers in this and the A class 

 combined closely correspond with those in t and all below t. 



Class C are supported by intermittent earnings; they are a hard- 

 working people, but have a very bad character for improvidence and 

 shiftlessness. In class D the earnings are regular, but at the low 

 rate of 21 shillings or less a week, so none of them rise above pov- 

 erty, though none are very poor. D and C together correspond to 

 the whole of s combined with the lower fifth of /■. The next class, E, 

 is the largest of any, and comprises all those with regular standard 

 earnings of 22 to 30 shillings a week. This class is the recognized 

 field for all forms of cooperation and combination; in short, for 

 trades unions. It corresponds to the upper four-fifths of r and 

 the lower four-fifths of R. It is, therefore, essentially the mediocre 

 class, standing as far below 7 the highest in civic worth as it stands 

 above the lowest class with its criminals and semicriminals. Next 

 above this large mass of mediocrit} 7 comes the honorable class F, 

 which consists of better-paid artisans and foremen. These are able to 

 provide adequately for old age, and their sons become clerks, etc. 

 G is the lower middle class of shopkeepers, small employers, clerks, 

 and subordinate professional men, who as a rule are hard-working, 

 energetic, and sober. F and G combined correspond to the upper fifth 

 of R and the whole of S, and are, therefore, a counterpart to D and C. 

 All above G are put together by Mr. Booth into one class, H, which 

 corresponds to our T, U, V, and above, and is the counterpart of his 

 two lowermost classes, A and B. So far, then, as these figures go, 

 civic worth is distributed in fair approximation to the normal law of 

 frequency. We also see that the classes /, //, y, and below are un- 

 desirables. 



WORTH OF CHILDREN. 



The brains of the nation lie in the higher of our classes. If such 

 people as would be classed W or X could be distinguishable as children 

 and procurable by money in order to be reared as Englishmen, it would 

 be a cheap bargain for the nation to buy them at the rate of many hun- 

 dred or some thousands of pounds per head. Dr. Farr, the eminent 

 statistician, endeavored to estimate the money worth of an average 

 baby born to the wife of an Essex laborer and thenceforward living 

 during the usual time and in the ordinary way of his class. Dr. Farr, 



