OCR Rendition - approximate

8 THE POSSIBLE IMPROVEMENT

Comparison of the Normal Classes with those

of Mr. Booth.-Let us now compare the normal classes with those into which Mr. Charles Booth has divided the population of all London in a way that corresponds not unfairly with the ordinary conception of grades of civic worth. He reckons them from the lowest upwards, and gives the numbers in each class for East London. Afterwards he treats all London in a similar manner, except that sometimes he combines two classes into one and gives the joint result. For my present purpose, I had to couple them somewhat differently, first disentangling them as I best could. There seemed no better way of doing this than by assigning to the members of each couplet the same proportions that they had in East London. Though this was certainly not accurate, it is probably not far wrong. Mr. Booth has taken unheard of pains in this great work of his to arrive at accurate results, but he emphatically says that his classes cannot be separated sharply from one another. On the contrary, their frontiers blend, and this justifies me in taking slight liberties with his figures. His class A consists of criminals, semi-criminals, loafers and some others, who are in number at the rate of i per cent. in all London-that is roo per io,ooo, or nearly three times as many as the v class : they therefore include the whole of v and spread upwards into the u. His class B consists of very poor persons who subsist on casual