LONDON WORKERS, SECULARISTS, ETC. 85 



some place fifty miles away. It is also absolutely certain 

 that the food of the workman was quite as good as it is now 

 or even better, and that meat and beer formed regular articles 

 of consumption by the average mechanic. 



Now, these almost incredible errors as to matters of fact 

 teach us that Government officials are quite unfitted to deal 

 with such questions as these, mainly because they know noth- 

 ing at first hand of the lives of the workers and thus omit to 

 take account of some of the most essential factors in the prob- 

 lem at issue. 



Thus Mr. GifFen slurs over and minimizes the universal 

 increase of rent. In the report already quoted, Miss Edith 

 Simcox gives the results of two inquiries into the poorer dis- 

 tricts of Westminster. A communication to the Statistical 

 Society in 1840 showed that at that time somewhat less than 

 a quarter of the wages went to pay rents ; while a somewhat 

 similar inquiry in 1884 by the Pall Mall Gazette showed that 

 in another part of Westminster rents were on the average, 

 for the same accommodation, nearly three times as much as 

 those recorded forty years before. Combining these two re- 

 sults, it is clear, that, even if workmen have smaller or fewer, 

 rooms than at the earlier period, they must still pay nearly 

 twice as much rent, and this enormous increase will absorb a 

 large portion, and in some cases the whole of the increase in 

 wages. 



Another point which Mr. Giffen omits to notice and allow 

 for is the fact, well known to all workmen who remember the 

 earlier period, that the decreased cost of clothing is quite 

 illusory; the badness of the materials, made for show rather 

 than for wear, render them really dearer. At the early period 

 referred to shoddy was not invented, and paper as part of the 

 soles in workmen's boots was unknown. The corduroys and 

 fustians then generally worn by mechanics would last twice 

 or thrice as long as the cheaper articles now sold under the 

 same name. Boots were then all good leather and hand- 

 sewn, and though not so highly finished and a little dearer 

 than the cheapest kinds now made, would outlast two or three 



