A24 
cent., being 500 frances per annum, the cost of wheat had fallen a little, 
being 20.32 franes per hectoliter and 305 francs for 15 hectoliters, leaving 
a surplus of 195 franes of the income. In 1852, the income, 550 franes, 
had advanced 10 per cent., and the price of wheat had fallen to 19.45 
francs per hectoliter, or 292 franes for 15 hectoliters, leaving a surplus 
of 258 frances. In 1862, the income was 720 franes, and the wheat, at 
21.08 franes per hectoliter, amounted to 316 franes, leaving a surplus of 
404 franes. Finally, in 1872, the income, 800 francs, after deducting 356 
franes for 15 hectoliters, at 23.74 franes each, left a surplus of 444 franes. 
In 1700, the laboring family could pay only 63 per cent. of the cost of 
the amount of wheat necessary to their support, to say nothing of other 
and pressing necessities of their being. In 1788, they could pay 83 per 
cent. of the bread ration; in 1813, they could pay the whole, with a sur- 
plus of 27 per cent.; in 1840, the surplus was 64 per cent.; in 1852, 88 
per cent.; in 1862, 127 per cent.; in 1872, 125 per cent. 
But bread, the most essential of family provisions, has not enhanced 
in price as rapidly as other necessaries of life. The progress of agricult- 
ure and the development of international commerce by means of im- 
proved methods of transportation, have made the price of grain more uni- 
form. Closerrelations subsist between supply and demand. The scarcity 
of one section is relieved by the surplus of other sections made available 
by easy communication. But the prices of meats, vegetables, drinks, 
rents, &c., have followed a higher ratio of progression ; clothing, furni- 
ture, &c., however, became considerably cheaper as the century ad- 
vanced. M. De Foville calculates the actual expenses of living for a 
working family, at three different periods in the time under considera- 
tion, as follows: 
i ) 
Articles. 1785 to 1790. | 1810 to 1815. | 1870 to 1875. 
Francs Francs Francs. 
HO OURS ae ays Ree rete Ome oc cree eS 350 400 630 
ent ANG taxes tee see cc omens Cees 25 40 60 
HirevandWiPhtij. eka s we Sees 20 25 : 30 
UO UNIMOG Foe bo coe he ease eee ooo xeeeee ee 150 140 80: 
MVE TC OMS eee ec LIS eee 2 ce ee we 30 46 50 
Motaleces . gah silssk ae. eee es 575 | 650 850 
To procure the amount of comfortable subsistence which now consti- 
tutes the rule among French villages to-day, the family of the working- 
man of the first empire needed 650 franes per annum, and received only 
400; under Louis XVI, they needed 575 franes per annum, and received 
only 200, or a little over a third. The grandfathers of the French peas- 
antry of to-day had but two-thirds, and their great grandfathers but 
one-third of their allowance. 
The above facts indicate an unmistakable and substantial improve- 
ment in the condition of French working-men, yet it would be illogical 
to conclude that all suffering has been removed. But extreme poverty, 
M. De Foville thinks, is mostly the result of individual imprudence, rather 
than of necessity or external circumstances. A comparison of English 
and American statistics sliows that the margin between wages and 
necessary cost of living has widened more rapidly in France than in 
either England or the United States. In Asia Minor,.people are to-day . 
compelled to live as slenderly as French working families did one hun- 
dred and fifty years ago. In Russia, day labor commands wages ap- 
—s a 
