My informant, however, obliged me with the following calculations, the results of his experience. His trade is what I may describe as a medium business, between the low slop and the high fashionable trades. The garments of which he spoke were those worn by clerks, shopmen, students, tradesmen, town-travellers, and others not engaged in menial or handicraft labour.
Altogether, and after consulting his books relative to town and country customers, my informant thought it might be easy to substantiate the following estimate as regards the duration and cost of clothes in town and country among the classes I have specified.
TABLE SHOWING THE COMPARATIVE COST OF CLOTHES WORN IN TOWN AND COUNTRY.
| Garments. | Original cost. | Town. | Country. | Difference of cost. | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Duration. | Annual cost. | Duration. | Annual cost. | |||||||||||
| £ | s. | d. | Years. | £ | s. | d. | Years. | £ | s. | d. | £ | s. | d. | |
| Coat | 2 | 10 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 5 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 16 | 8 | 0 | 8 | 4 |
| Waistcoat | 0 | 15 | 0 | 2½ | 0 | 6 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| Trowsers | 1 | 5 | 0 | 1¼ | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 12 | 6 | 0 | 7 | 6 |
| Total Suit | 4 | 10 | 0 | 2 | 11 | 0 | 1 | 14 | 2 | 0 | 16 | 10 | ||
Here, then, it appears that the annual outlay for clothes in town, by the classes I have specified, is about 2l. 11s.; while the annual outlay in the country for the same garments is 1l. 14s. 2d.; the difference of expense being 16s. 10d. per annum. I consulted another tailor on the subject, and his estimate was a trifle above that of my informant.
I should remark that the proportion thus adduced holds, whatever be the number of garments worn in the year, or in a series of years, for the calculation was made not as to individual garments, but as to the general wear, evinced by the average outlay, as shown in the tradesman’s books, of the same class of persons in town and country.
In the calculation given in the publication of the National Philanthropic Association, the loss on a well-dressed Londoner’s clothing, arising from excessive dust and dirt, is estimated at from 3l. to 7l. per annum. By the above table it will be seen that the clothes which cost 1l. 14s. 2d. per annum in the cleanliness of a country abode, cost 2l. 11s., or, within a fraction, half as much again, in the uncleanliness of a London atmosphere and roads. If, therefore, any London inhabitant, of the classes I have specified, expend four times 2l. 11s. in his clothes yearly, as many do, or 10l. 4s., he loses 3l. 5s. 4d., or 5s. 4d. more than the minimum mentioned in the Report alluded to.
Now estimating 2l. 10s. as the yearly tailor’s bill among the well-to-do (boys and men), and calculating that one-sixth of the metropolitan population (that is, half of the one-third who may be said to belong to the class having incomes above 150l. a year) spend this sum yearly in clothes, we have the following statement:—