Per head in 1805. In 1842.
————————- ————
Ells of cloth…………. 3/4 ………… 1-1/5
" linen…………. 4 ………… 5
" woollen stuffs…. 3/4 ………… 13
" silks…………. 1/4 ………… 3/8
"The Sunday suit of the peasants," says Mr. Kay—
"In Germany, Switzerland, and Holland rivals that of the middle classes. A stranger taken into the rooms where the village dances are held, and where the young men and young women are dressed in their best clothes, would often be unable to tell what class of people were around him." * * * "It is very curious and interesting, at the provincial fairs, to see not only what a total absence there is of any thing like the rags and filth of pauperism, but also what evidence of comfort and prosperity there is in the clean and comfortable attire of the women."—Vol. i. 225, 227.
In further evidence of the improvement of the condition of the female sex, he tells us that
"An Englishman, taken to the markets, fairs, and village festivals of these countries, would scarcely credit his eyes were he to see the peasant-girls who meet there to join in the festivities; they are so much more lady-like in their appearance, in their manners, and in their dress than those of our country parishes."—Vol. i. 31.
The contrast between the education of the children of the poor in
Germany and England is thus shown:—
"I advise my readers to spend a few hours in any of our back streets and alleys, those nurseries of vice and feeders of the jails, and to assure himself that children of the same class as those he will see in [these] haunts—dirty, rude, boisterous, playing in the mud with uncombed hair, filthy and torn garments, and skin that looks as if it had not been washed for months—are always, throughout Germany, Switzerland, Denmark, Holland, and a great part of France, either in school or in the school play-ground, clean, well-dressed, polite and civil in their manners, and healthy, intelligent, and happy in their appearance. It is this difference in the early life of the poor of the towns of these countries which explains the astonishing improvement which has taken place in the state of the back streets and alleys of many of their towns. The majority of their town poor are growing up with tastes which render them unfit to endure such degradation as the filth and misery of our town pauperism."—Vol. i. 198.
As a natural consequence, there is that tendency toward equality which everywhere else is attendant on real freedom. "The difference," says Mr. Kay—
"Between the condition of the juvenile population of these countries and of our own may be imagined, when I inform my readers that many of the boys and girls of the higher classes of society in these countries are educated at the same desks with the boys and girls of the poorest of the people, and that children comparable with the class which attends our 'ragged schools' are scarcely ever to be found. How impossible it would be to induce our gentry to let their children be educated with such children as frequent the 'ragged schools,' I need not remind my readers."—P. 101.
This tendency to equality is further shown in the following passage:—