80 DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH IN ENGLAND 



Wales were peopled up to their capacity in 1690. I should 

 add that the average acreage to a house in 1690 was 28.29, 

 and in 1861 was 9.98. 



The number of hearths to a house is evidence as to the spread 

 of the comforts and conveniences of life among the people. 

 Of course the highest is in Middlesex, where the average is 

 3.2780. Next come Devon, Dorset, and Somerset. After 

 them come the home counties, Kent leading. The lowest in 

 the scale is Durham, with Northumberland, where the average 

 is only 1.2404, though these are counties where the mining 

 of coal had been an ancient industry. The figures seem to 

 indicate that the northern parts of England were exceedingly 

 backward in the common conveniences of life, and that the 

 houses of the peasantry were mean and squalid. At the 

 same time we know that the cause was not in the tax, for 

 Davenant informs us that half a million of these houses were 

 exempt from the payment of the hearth-tax 1 . 



Not less instructive than the economical inferences which 

 may be gathered from the records of the hearth-tax are those 

 derived from the distribution of the poor-rate. As regards 

 these figures Davenant informs us that they are an average taken 

 for several years, and calculated at the latter end of Charles 

 the Second's reign. We are informed also that the estimate 

 of the poor-rate in Wales is not derived from evidence, but 

 is a hypothetical statement. But in interpreting the amount 

 of taxation levied, and the distribution of wealth, Wales was 

 of small significance at the time of which I am writing. 



I have not ventured on making a hypothetical estimate 

 of the population in the several counties, though of course it is 

 just as legitimate to do so for the parts of England as it is 

 for the whole. The total poor-rate, according to Davenant, 

 is .665,362; and it is noteworthy, as we shall see below, that 

 the price of grain was lower on an average between 1662 and 

 1685 than at any similar four-and-twenty years of the century, 

 and therefore the charge for maintaining the poor should have 



1 Vol. i. P . 19. 



