Volume 1

Labour and life of the people / edited by Charles Booth.

Date:
1889-
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Labour and life of the people / edited by Charles Booth. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    613/622 page 597
    in Class B before they finally succumb. <A study of the sources of pauperism, by means of an analysis of paupers, would be interesting, and might lead to valuable and sug- gestive results, but like an analysis of crime, it has no place in an inquiry into the condition of a single district. Class C, with its irregular employment and improvident habits, is that which is most hardly judged, and perhaps, also, most hardly used. “ If we got our deserts, which of us would ’scape whipping ?”’ and in nine cases out of ten these unfortunate people get what they deserve. Towards their misfortunes modern sentiment turns its hard side of moral condemnation. 'The more it knows of them the harder becomes the line drawn between “ deserving” and “ un- deserving,” and the fewer they be who rank with the deserving. Those who are industrious and thrifty usually need no help. It is for the most part with those who fall below the ideal standard of energy, prudence, or sobriety that we are attempting to deal. To select the few picked cases or even that larger number who are comparatively deserving, and simply to admonish the rest, is not enough. To raise this class we need some larger plan. Class D does not deserve the less consideration because it is troubled neither by its own past experience of better things, nor by what is expected of it, nor by an unattain- able ideal. But it even more than Class C can only be helped by a movement which shall succeed in raising the whole standard of life. It is chiefly for the sake of these two classes that my proposals for dealing with Class B are made. ‘They are my clients, and to their service especially I dedicate this book. Class H contains those whose lot to-day is most agoravated by a raised ideal. It is in some ways a hopeful sign, but it is also a danger. Here, rather than in the ruffianism of Class A, or the starvation of class B, or the wasted energy of Class C, or the bitter anxieties of Class D, do we find the springs of Socialism and Revolution. The stream that flows
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