The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1872-12-14 00:00:00

"COMFORTABLE
_CIRCUMSTANCES!"

_ _ _
(From The Tama)
A contemporary has started a curious and suggestive
question :—" What 'are the numbers of the " COM.
fortable r The question itself is not only quite fair,
but continually forced upon us, insomuch that people
are of ten provoked to reply to it. You are told that
such and such a couple are in Comfortable Circum-
stances, and have to frame to yourself what it can
mean. At once it must strike you that the question
involves moral as well as material considerations.
No doubt cur contemporary his the moral as
well as the material questidu in view, but,
bearing in mind that the general public does not take
very kindly to either ethics or etatistics, he tries the
experiment of twining the two strands into one yam.
It is a novelty, even if it be a paradox, to find "Com-
fort" in a Parliamentary Return and admitting of
an arithmetical expression. The difficulty, and the
fact that there will be some variety of opinions is
confessed at once in the very way of putting the
question, which is not the number, but the numbers
of the Comfortable. This admits that there will be
different numbers —that ie, different replies to the
question, according to the estimate of what is
enough for Comfort. It is convenient to say some-
thing, and our contemporary boldly lays down as
the standard of Comfort the being assessed at more
than £lOO to the House Tax. Upon that definition
the reader jets join issue, and think as he pleases. The
writer estimates that this assessment, in London, im-
plies a rent of £l2O, which is equivalent to at least £175
a year for rent, taxes, repairs, and water rate ; and this
implies an income of not has than £BOO. In the country
it supposes an annual outlay of £l5O for the house, and
an income of at least £6OO. Upon this supposition,
and with proper deductions from the House Tax
return', there are not 60,000 Comfortable households.
If an assessment of between £5O and £lOO be ace
cepted as a teat of being well-to-do, then we have
150,000 such families. Taking £2O • year and
upwards, we have 710,000 families, or 3,550,000
who may be comprehended under the general head
of " respectable, " or above the necesaity of direct
manual labour. If this be respectability, then we
trust there are not so many respectable people as the
test chosen would give us. "Direct manual labour"
is the sated of all conditions, and the beet security for
a moderate average of moral goodness and happiness!.
We should hope, therefore, that in the number des-
cribed as respectable because not " operative " there is
a large proportion of small farmers, tradesman, and
craftsmen, working with their hands, though in houses
assessed at £2O a year.
"Comfortable Circumstances" is an expression
scarcely ever found in the mouths of those who are
supposed to be in the enjoyment of them. People
ascribe them to their neighbours; or they hope one
flay to possess them; or they have possessed them in
their time, and do so no longer. The phr age is entirely
relative, and must always have a smack of material
considerations. Perhaps, too, when we talk of persons
in Colufortab'e Circumstances, we put them rather
out of the action of life. They may be in the world,
in society, and even popular members of it, but going
with the stream and keeping their places in it.
Every line of enterprise or ambition suggests other
ideas than Comfort, being, indeed, more or leas in-
compatible with it. Nor is any income, any house,

or any other circumstance sufficient for those who am
moving, and therefore outgrowing them. It is I'm
possible to talk of any M.P., unless he be a silent one,
or of • rising Lawyer, or any physician, or a 'speculate;
in the market or on 'Change, as being in Comfortable
Circumstances. In the great world if everybody is
content to keep his place is some circle within the
circle, exchanging every year the same hospitalities and
receptions, and taking care to suppress all yearning for
• larger development, he may be described as in -
fortable Circumstances. The moment he tries to
outgrow that common form he must bid adieu to
Comfort. We cease to speak of him in that relation.
He was in Comfortable Circumstances, we Fay, but
was not content with them, or did not know whe n h
was well off. Even when we speak of people at-
sluing to Comfortable Circumstances as the result
of industry, it is with an underlying feeling that such
was the object of their lives, and that they are persons
to be satisfied with Comforts. All this can have no
special regard to any one scale of house, income, or ex-
penditure. Whether it be the bearer of a great name
carefully dividing alimiteel income between rent, house-
hold bills, dress, carriage hire, pleasure, and charities ;
or a tradesman's family sitting down to a joint
every other lay; or a Darby and Joan driving out
daily in a pony carriage, and sitting down to afternoon
tea and toast, we talk of them as being in Comfortable
Circumstances with a latent reference to what they
have not, and also to what they are not. If a man
who has been all his life in difficulties comes by the
time that he has outlived a good deal of nonsense and
learnt a little wisdom and content into an income that
should be sufficient for him, he is said to be placed in
Comfortable Circumstances. The truth is that while
a great deal may be done out of any income worthy
of being called an income, no income whatever
is sufficient for those whose imaginations will always
rise to the occasion, and fly beyond all bounds of
necessity or duty. The greater part of the world, if
they have credit, will draw upon it, aril that far more
freely than they would ever do upon money in hand.
Paley used to tell his wife, when she went into the
City, "Buy whatever you please, so as you pay ready
money; but let me have no bills." Perhaps the best
definition of "Comfortable Circumstances' is paying
ready money for everything. There can be no real corns
fort with unlimited credit, whether on a basis of £BO,
£BlO, or £B,OOO a year. It lathe revival of an instinct
that this is so which makes the real strength of the co.
operative movement against which the wrath of Lon-
don tradesmen flowed so freely last week.
This, however, is a morality • and what our contem•
porary aims at is a statietigal classification, proceeding
upon a popular and intelligible definition. All praise
to the attempt, but we expect it will be found that
Rent, upon which Assessment must be founded, is
very little of a test. Even in large manufacturing
towns it has long been assumed that if anybody
can afford to pay £lOO for the house where he is to
reside, he will take one in the suburbs. and come into
the tuwu for his business. Excepting, then, that
seine professional men will be obliged to live in
town, and will get good houses very cheap, there will
be hardly a sinele householder in a population
of 50,000 paying £l2O a year. Yet our contemporary
would not exclude the population of a great city. from
the comfortable class. Further, there is no point on
which people more differ than on the proportion of the
rent to the general expenditure. Many are over-
houvel, sometimes from professional or family neces-
&ties, sometimes because they fall in with the prevail-
ing taste and ambition of a showy and material age.
Yet there are still theme who consider a good house an
incumbrance, and who endeavour to make their way in
the world w;th cheaper appliances. They are fortu-
nate—for it is really a matter of good fortune than
of good management—who can do with houses of the
lowest sufficient scale; above all, only one house, and
that requiring a small establishment. As to Com-
fort, the larger part of the discomfort of life in
these days consists in the size of houses an grounds
—in the staff of servants to be kept up, and the
constant supervision necessary to prevent waste,
robbery, and neglect. When it is said that most of
our great landowners are their own steward.,
bailifts, builders, and gardeners it is evident they
must be excluded from the Comfortable class. Yet,
if they are to be excluded, what becomes of the defini-
tion? If £lOO,OOO a year does not secure from weary
days, sleepless nights, not to speak of the few other
troubles, will Vial be a better guarantee for peace of
mind and a good digestion? We hardly think the
definition will stand the teat of feeling and experience.
Let our contemporary try another. It can but give us
come further light into our social ways and means and
the national stock of material comforts, oven though it
fail to tell us in what consists that Comfort said to be
so dear to the Englishman.