INDUSTRIAL VILLAGES. 285 



small one.* This last occupies about 1,650,000 

 workers and supports from 4,000,000 to 5,000,000 

 persons. A considerable number of peasants 

 who resort to small industries without abandon- 

 ing agriculture would have to be added to the 

 just-mentioned items, and the additional earn- 

 ings which these peasants find in industry are so 

 important that in several parts of France peasant 

 proprietorship could not be maintained without 

 the aid derived from the rural industries. 



The small peasants know what they have to 

 expect the day they become factory hands in a 

 town ; and so long as they have not been dis- 

 possessed by the money-lender of their lands and 

 houses, and so long as the village rights in the 



* These figures, which were found during the census of 1866, 

 have not changed much since, as may be seen from the follow- 

 ing table which gives the proportional quantities of the different 

 categories of the active population of both sexes (employers, 

 working men, and clerks) in 1866 and 1896 : 



As has been remarked by M. S. Fontaine who worked out the 

 results of the last census, "the number of persons employed in 

 industry properly speaking, although it has increased, has never- 

 theless absorbed a smaller percentage of the loss sustained by the 

 agricultural population than the other categories." Resultats 

 statitisques du recensement des professions, t. iv., p. 8. 



