Family Life of the Middle Glass. 213 



FAMILY LIFE OF THE MIDDLE CLASS. 



The good qualities of the English middle class, as developed 

 in their family life, are amply recognized; indeed, an exag- 

 gerated estimate of them too often occasions a blindness to 

 very striking, if not perilous, defects. The term "middle 

 class" usually designates those families whose income is, wholly 

 or chiefly, derived from personal exertion in trade, commerce, 

 or a so-called " learned profession," and this description will 

 be sufficient for the purpose of this paper. The family income 

 in this great section of the community may be supposed to 

 range from two or three hundred to as many thousands a year ; 

 but there are many whose resources are smaller, and others who 

 are able to rival and exceed the expenditure of the wealthiest 

 houses of the aristocracy. Social custom divides the middle 

 class into several grades, partly on the ground of diversity of 

 wealth, and still more on that of occupation. As a rule, retail 

 trades are held to be inferior to those that are wholesale, and it 

 is thought to be " genteel " to sell goods in a warehouse, and 

 comparatively " vulgar " to sell them in a shop. The great- 

 ness of London tends to swamp many minor distinctions, and 

 hence the popular estimate of the dignity or inferiority of 

 occupations has less action in the metropolis than in smaller 

 towns. The fashionable world rigidly excludes from its private 

 assemblies all who are known to be guilty of the serious 

 offence of dispensing articles in small quantities. Mr. Jones, 

 who sells cotton in the bale, is admissible ; Mr. Thompson, 

 who will accommodate his customers with a skein, could not 

 possibly be tolerated. This exclusion of retailers is more or 

 less broken into when the shop is in the city, and the family 

 reside in a villa a few miles off. 



In small towns the artificial distinction of social grades has 

 more rigidity and completeness. One or two successful pro- 

 fessional men are allowed to visit " county families," and the 

 same high powers will sometimes look benignly upon a local 

 merchant, if his transactions are large. In such towns it 

 frequently happens that the most intelligent and useful man 

 for rendering service in public questions, local or national, 

 keeps a shop, and he is thus placed in an awkward inter- 

 mediate state. His talents and services compel a certain 

 amount of consideration from those above him ; but as they 

 cannot condone the shopkeeping, they do not freely admit his 

 family into their circles, and probably those of his own precise 

 rank are not sufficiently cultivated to be his natural com- 

 panions. In many little towns social visiting is well nigh 

 impracticable, except amongst relations, as every man in the 



