PREFACE. XIX 



so great is the variety of circumstances between 

 different families, that it is impossible to form an 

 average, far less any accurate idea, of the real con- 

 dition of the poor from such a general and whole- 

 sale statement. The number of the children, the 

 state of their health, and of that of their mother ; 

 the rent and condition of their cottage ; the size of 

 their garden ; its being overgrown or otherwise 

 with trees ; the convenience of fuel ; the nature of 

 the employment ; the number of days in each 

 month that the labourer has been prevented from 

 working ; the deductions made from his wages for 

 that loss of time ; accidents, &c., are all matters too 

 minute to enter into calculations made by writers, 

 but which do constitute so great an amount of the 

 real prosperity, of the real well- or ill-thriving of the 

 poor, that without taking them into the account 

 nothing is at last known of their true condition. 



All that the political economist means to meddle 

 with are the physical and animal wants of man ; 

 but these do not constitute all his happiness, and 

 his moral condition modifies it to an immense ex- 

 tent. The English economists have never consi- 

 dered anything but the one point, how to be rich ; 

 and for this they have sacrificed all the happiness 

 of the people, or rather they have confounded the 

 two things together. 



The capital of a labourer is strength and time. 



b2 



