The St. Johns herald., 1894-11-15
INCOMES IN ENGLAND.
Wealthy Men Not So Numerous
 as in America.
Notwithstanding Which the Wealth of This Country Is More Evenly Dis- tributed-TactS Cleaned
 from Figures,


 If the evidence of the British govern ment returns showing the number of persons assessed for the income tax is trustworthy the number of very rich people in the United Kingdom is small. Only 250,OOO subjects Of the queen con- fess to an annual ir2Ome of over S1 900 a year derived froa trades or profes- sions. The whole number of them who live on the scale represented by fam ily income above the &1, 900 mark, de- rived from any source, is set down at about 2,00O, ,000, CT enc in nineteen of the population. In other words, says the Baltimore Sun, not more than , per cent. of the inhabitants of England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland are living in the moderately well-to-do state, i'm piled by a family income of S20 per week. Going up ia the scale of in- comes we learn from these official re- turns that 123, 900 British families, ag grcgating 615, GOO persons, are all who are in receipt of incomes of S1,500 year and over. Commenting on these figures the Westminster Gazette says of the limits of wealth and income in the realm of Victoria: ''The possession of what is ordinarily termed modest income, of anything, in fact, above el50 tor S75O) is a rare stroke of fortune, which comes to very few in this world, while the chance Of becoming Crpsus is so wildly remote that it will hardly enter into the calculations of reason able man. 1t appears that about 5000 persons in the whole United King dom have incomes of over $25, GOO year. Gen. Booth some time since took a servant girl census Of London and found that only 94.000 houses in that city hired any servants at all, and that in one-half of that number there was only one maid-of-all work employed. And this in the richest city of the coun- try, containing one-ninth of its entire population.
 Making due allowance for the fact that Dritishers, like mankind general ly, can be trusted not to overstate their incomes for purposes of taxation, it is still evident that the wealth of this country is not only greater than that of Great Britain, but that it is better distributed. Far more American fami- lies than British have incomes exceed ing any given figure above $l,G0O a year. As against the I, 900 British fam flies with incomes of S25,0 900 a year or larger, the famous tabulation made by Thomas C. Shearman shows that there are more than twicc-as many American families possessing that degree of wealth. These Shearman figures have not been disputed by anybody, and, if true, they show that at least 400, 900 American families, or 9, 900, 900 persons, live on a level of comfort represented by an income of g., GOO year or more, as against the same number living on the Sl ,O00 year plane in England. It is estimated that 5,000 persons will be called upon in this country to pay the new income tax on incomes exceeding @i,O00 year. The British parliament taly returns indicate that this is three times as many persons as are assessed over that figure by the queens tax col Iectors. On the whole it seems safe to conclede that the average incomes of families in the United States are still higher than in the most favored or at any rate the best governed, country in Europe. Wealth is still distributed more evenly here than anywhere else in the world