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A GENERAL ACCOUNT OF SUCH AS ARE OF LESS CONSE
QUENCE, WITH SHORT CHARACTERS;

AND

NOTICES, OR REVIEWS, OF VALUABLE FOREIGN BOOKS

ALSO THE

LITERARY INTELLIGENCE OF EUROPE, &c.

"At hæc omnia ita tractari præcipimus, ut non, Criticorum more, in laude et
"cenfura tempus teratur ; fed plane biftorice RES IPSE narrentur, judicium
"parcius interponatur."
BACON de biftoria literaria conscribenda.

VOL. XXII.

FROM JULY TO DICEMBER INCLUSIVE, 1795.

LONDON:

FRINTED FOR J. JOHNSON, No. 72, ST. PAUL'S CHURCH-YARD.

M DCC XCVI.

357

THE

ANALYTICAL REVIEW,

FOR JULY, 1795.

POLITICAL ECONOMY.

ART. 1. The Cafe of Labourers in Hufbandry ftated and confidered, in three Parts. Part I. A View of their diftreffed Condition. Part II. The principal Caufes of their growing Diftrefs and Number, and of the confequent Increase of the Poor-Rate. Part III. Means of Relief propofed. With an Appendix; containing a Collection of Accounts, fhewing the Earnings and Expences of labouring Families, in different Parts of the Kingdom. By David Davies, Rector of Barkham, Berks. 4to. 200 pages. Price 10s. 6d. in boards. Bath, Cruttwell; London, Robinsons. 1795.

A SUBJECT of greater importance, or of more immediate urgency, can fcarcely be offered to the public attention, than that of the volume before us. What are the proper means of removing the diftreffes and curing the vices of the poor? is a queftion, which, as fir Jofiah Child long ago remarked, deferves the most deliberate confideration of our wifest counsellors; and if a whole feffion of parliament were employed upon this fingle concern, I think,' fays he, it would be time spent as much to the good of the nation, as any thing that noble and worthy patriots can be engaged in.' The poor in general, whofe condition. has long been diftreffing, and particularly the clafs of day labourers, who fuffer peculiar hardships, have found in Mr. D. an able and zealous advocate. He has examined very accurately the circumftances of labourers in husbandry, and here lays before the public, a feries of interefting facts, accompanied with judicious obfervations.

In order to furnish correct data concerning the condition of the day labourers, the author firft gives tables of the expenfes and earnings of fix labouring families in Berkshire, taken in 1787. From these tables it appears, that the men's earnings do not upon an average much, if at all, exceed eight fhillings a week, and that a wife's earnings are not more than from fix pence to nine pence a week. The total of the earnings may be averaged at about twenty two pounds fifteen fhillings. Thefe earnings enable poor families to purchafe little food befide bread; few families can afford more than a pound of meat weekly. Where there are feveral children unable to work, the weekly earnings are not fufficient to fupply them, in the fcantieft proportion, with the common weekly neceffaries, exclufive of the annual outgoings of B

VOL. XXII, NO, I.

houfe

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