The Sun.
London, England, 1829-12-07 00:00:00

CLASSIFICATION OF TB:. rOPULATION OF FRANCE MITH

REFERENCE TO WEALTH.

Class. Number of Total Revenue Per head Per head
individuals per annum per day
I
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12

a 2,252,000

" It is strongly asserted in the papers from which these
details are extracted, that in place of the three last classes
in the table being stated at too low an amount, a very great
proportion of the people of France contrive to support ex-
istence on even less than the lowest rate of twenty-five
centimes, which is not quite equal to 2il. a day. To a
casual observer this may scarcely appear passible; hut if
we reflect that for months, and even years together,
during the depressed period of the cotton manufacture, to
say nothing of Ireland, the numerous class of. weavers in
the West of Scotland, where there is no poor rate to make
up the deficiency in wages, contrived to support a family
of four or five individuals on wages which too
oftan fell short of five shilings a week, it will
not be so difficult to give credit to the statement I have
nowsubmitted to you, on what I conceive to be respectable
authority. It is confidently affirmed that seven millions
of the people of France eat little or no bread, and that
what they do eat is of the very worst quality, their usual
food consisting of a boiled mess of barley mixed with rye,
aed sarrazin or buck wheat, with chesnuts and dried
roots; and indeed so largely do the chesnuts enter as an
item into the general food of the great body of the people,
that there is at this moment very serious distress in several
important districts of France, arising from the deficiency
of the chesnut crop for the present year. It is only since
the yt ar 1812, which was one of great scarcity in France,
that the potato has become the habitual food of this class
of the population, which I fear is still very far indeed from
verifying the philanthropic wish ascribed to their most
popular monarch, Henry the Fourth, that every family in
his kingdom should have a fowl in their put on Sundays.
As to meat, it need scarcely be said, indeed, that they have
scarcely an idea of it; their only drink is water, and they
are little better lodged than as many savages. The esti-
mate is, that twenty centimes are consumed in food, and
the other five serve for clothes and lodging. It is only on
going back to the ninth class of the scale that we find the
people provided with an adequate supply of the necessaries
of life; and it is not till the eighth that it becomes com-
plete and satisfactory. Ease begins at the seventh, and in-
creases in the sixth, until, if the French understand the
term, it approximates in the fifth, and at length reaches in
the fourth and third the point of COMFORT. It is not till
we arrive at the second class that we come to the point of
luxury, which in the first reaches tilts acme of every
species of profusion and indulgence.
" The taxes, which in France press most heavily on the
middle and even on the lower classes, are those on salt am'
on wine, That on salt is liable to all the objections of a
poll or capitation tax; and that on wine is unequal in its
operation, because it is the same on all qualities of wine,
so that the mechanic pays as much to Government for his
draught of the poorest trash which can be conceived, in-
ferior—infinitely inferior to our English small beer—as
the millinnnaire requires to pay for his finest claret or
Champagne. But this is a subject on which time today
does not permit me to enter."

The witty Lord A., after an absence of two
or three weeks from town, called the other day on his
bookseller, in Bond-street, and inquired if there were any new
and interesting publications' Yes, replied the bibliopo-
list, handing to his Lordship " MILLMAN'S History of the
Jews." Ah ! replied be, at the same time returning
the book, " tell MILLMAN, I know more about the -
Jews than he does.'