Condition 
of the peo. 
ple. 
Prices of 
labour. 
782 
the whole tion. The number of males'born was to 
that of es as 20 to 213. The illegitimate children 
formed 5th of the whole annual ction, whereas 
in Paris they formed }th. The number of 
was 282, which to whole population was as 1 to 
118: of these that were born, 1 in 2} was married. 
The number of deaths each year was 1112; and their 
proportion to the whole population was as 1 to 204: 
of these 546 were children under 10 years old. Win- 
ter and spring were the healthiest seasons. The bu- 
rials in August were to those in May, as $ito2, In 
1774, 1778, and 1783, the small-pox was epidemic, and 
in those years the annual cncetatity was increased by 
423 children. In the 21 years above mentioned, three 
men and 18 women died at the of 100 and up- 
wards; and one person in 74 arrived af the age of 70. 
The condition of the great mass of the people in 
France, with respect to their pecuniary circumstanees, 
since the Revolution, may be ess. as on the whole 
improved ; but at the mpg time, it WC oer a state of 
society by no means far advanced. ie in 
most places, as well as the small class of je 
eyen- the more extensive class of farmers in some eens 
of the kingdom, grow, or make within ‘themselves, 
nearly all that their families consume, or wear; the 
same comparatively little advanced state of society is 
indicated by the not uncommon mode of paying for 
labour by a part of what it produces or performs. 
With respect to pecuniary wages, they are nominally 
lower, not in fact. higher than they are in England ; 
for though the money given is less, yet from the cheap- 
ness of provisions, &c. it commands more of the ne- 
cessaries and comforts of life. In France, however, as 
probably in all countries, at least in Europe, not only 
the nominal but the real rate of wages has increased 
dually for a considerable length of ‘time, and _per- 
aps in a greater proportion, within these last 30 
years. In 1756, the price of labour at the places 
mentioned below, was as follows: At Lisle, the wages 
- of journeymen stocking and camlet weavers, was 
about 24 sous per day, that is about 13d. English: 
the journeymen weavers and cloth-workers at Abbe- 
ville gained, according to the nature of their work, 
and their dexterity, from 20 to 50 sous a day; 
whereas women, at the same place, engaged in the 
same manufacture, did not gain more than 12 sous a- 
day. Hedgers and ditchers in the country only 10 sous 
a-day. At Nantes, the journeymen ship nters, 
about 30 sous a-day. At Castelnandary, labourers, 
mending the canal of Languedoc, by the job, earned 
about 12 sous a-day. At Nismes, journeymen weavers 
in the silk and cotton trade, from 30 to 35 sous a-day. 
At Marseilles journeymen tailors 30 sous a-day.. At 
the same place, nters 30 sous; silk weavers from 
30 to 35 sous. At Toulon, journeymen carpenters, in 
the King’s yards, 30sous per day. At Lyons, journey- 
men workmen had several prices, according to the silks, 
velvets, gold stuffs, laces, &c. from 50 to 100 sous a-day. 
Land carriage of goods, from Marseilles to Lyons, 
230 miles, from six to seven livres, per 108 libs. - 
lish, (Tucker’s Essay on Trade, p. 75.) When Mr 
Young travelled in France, immediately before the Re- 
yolution, he averaged the earnings on all the fabrics 
manufactured in that kingdom, at 26 sous for the men, 
and 15 sous for the women ; the wages of the spinners 
being nine.sous. At the same time he calculated the 
wages of the men employed in the manufactures of 
England to average 20d. a-day, or rather more than 
40 sous ; the women 9d, or father more thay 18 sous; 
FRANCE. 
and the spinners 6}d. or about 13 sous, Ona 
sen of thuie quiets, scien that, at 
wages of the men in England was. nearly 
wages of the men in France, whereas the of the 
women in the former country was little more what 
it was in France. The pie geen gs ; 
out.the kingdom, employed in all sorts of work, — 
Young estimated at 19 sous; masons and carpenters, 
however, got $0 sous: He considered that the price of 
labour had risen about 20 per cent. in the course of 
25 years. The same author calculated the av rate 
of wages for all kinds of labour in England, to be, about 
1760, 1s. 3d. a-day ; and in 1789, when he travelled in 
France, about 1s, 43d. a-day. The result of his enqui- 
ries respecting the comparative price of meat and bread 
and the rate of w: in the two countries, in 1789, 
was, that labour in England averaged 33} sous, while 
meat was 84 sous, and bread 34 sous per pound; whereas 
in France, labour aver: 19 fur? and meat was 
7 sous, and 2 sous the poun: ence it appears, 
that the nominal price of labour was nearly 76 per 
cent. cheaper in France than in England ; the real 
price, considered with reference to its command over 
meat, was less, while its real price, considered with re« 
to its command over bread, was nearly the same 
in both countries. In 1814, Mr Birkbeck seems to 
have taken a good deal of pains to ascertain the com 
rative price of labour and provisions in France: He 
found that, at Rouen, women who attended the joass 
earned 15d. per day, equal to 11 pounds of bread ; 
labourers employed by a small farmer in the neigh« 
bourhood of that place, had 10d. whe by and their 
board ; and 20d. per day without . On this he 
remarks, that, “ as all provisions, every article of ex- 
pein, may be taken at something under half the 
nglish price, by doubling their wages, we may find 
the proportion they bear to ours.” In the south of 
France, near Vienne, the French labourer received three 
bushels and one-third for ing and thrashing, for - 
every 18 bushels thrashed ; the English labourer re- 
ceives for the same work only about a tenth: money 
wages are nearly in the same proporti About Lunet, 
the wages were 20d. per day for the men, and from 
10d. to 15d. per day for the women employed in agricul- 
ture; the former rate, considering the price of provi- 
sions, Mr Birkbeck considers as equal to 3s. 4d. in 
England. ° 
Before the Revolution, the poor 
versally sepporied, either by the ecclesiastics, or by poor. 
begging. Not long after the seizure of the ecclesias- 
tical estates, the National Assembly publily declared, 
that they would consider the care of € poor as one of 
their duties. They appointed also a commit- 
tee of mendicati, whose business was to enquire into, 
and re to the Assembly, the state of the poor, and 
the best means of extinguishing indigence in France. 
Of this committee the Duke of Lioncourt was the chair- 
man. Four reports were laid before the Assembly ; 
in their third report, the committee examine the ic 
of establishing a poor's rate, but with great wisdom ab-= 
solutely reject it. In their fourth report, however, 
they declare that the poor have a right. to pecuni 
assistance from the state ; that the National Assem 
ought to consider such provision as one of its first and 
most sacred duties; and that an expence, with this 
view, ought to be incurred, to the amount of 50 mil- 
lions of livres a-year. The unsettled state of France, 
however, seems to have prevented the execution of any 
plan founded on this report ; and, at present, the poor 
ae 
in France were uni- gate of the 
