would understand the extent of the disease, we must seek it in the
inequality of incomes among the labouring classes themselves. No family
need be reduced to suffering on 36s. a week. But unfortunately the
differences of income among the working-classes are proportionately
nearly as great as among the well-to-do classes. It is not merely the
difference between the wages of skilled and unskilled labour; the 50s.
per week of the high-class engineer, or typographer, and the 1s. 2d. per
diem of the sandwich-man, or the difference between the wages of men and
women workers. There is a more important cause of difference than these.
When the average income of a working family is named, it must not be
supposed that this represents the wage of the father of the family
alone. Each family contains about 2¼ workers on an average. This is a
fact, the significance of which is obvious. In some families, the father
and mother, and one or two of the children, will be contributors to the
weekly income; in other cases, the burden of maintaining a large family
may be thrown entirely on the shoulders of a single worker, perhaps the
widowed mother. If we reckon that the average wage of a working man is
about 24s., that of a working woman 15s., we realize the strain which
the loss of the male bread-winner throws on the survivor.

In looking at the gradations of income among the working-classes, it
must be borne in mind that as you go lower down in the standard of
living, each drop in money income represents a far more than
proportionate increase of the pressure of poverty. Halve the income of a
rich man, you oblige him to retrench; he must give up his yacht, his
carriage, or other luxuries; but such retrenchment, though it may wound
his pride, will not cause him great personal discomfort. But halve the
income of a well-paid mechanic, and you reduce him and his family at
once to the verge of starvation. A drop from 25s. to 12s. 6d. a week
involves a vastly greater sacrifice than a drop from £500 to £250 a