4
5th.—The destitute and unemployed poor, who earn nothing at all, and who are dependent for their livelihood on the charity of others. These can hardly be less than twenty-five millions, or a little less than one-tenth of the entire population.
The two hundred and ten millions who are supposed to be earning regularly from five rupees and upwards per family,, we may dismiss forthwith from consideration. 3?or the time being they are beyond the reach of want, and they are not therefore the objects of our solicitude. At some future date it may be possible to consider schemes for their amelioration.
Indirectly, no doubt, they will benefit immensely by airf plans that will relieve them of the dead weight of twenty-fire million paupers, hanging round their necks and crippling their resources. But for the present we may say in regard to them, happy is the man who can reckon upon a regular income of five rupees a month for the support of himself and his family, albeit he may have two or three-relations dependent on him, and a capricious money lender-ever on his track, ready to extort a lion's share of his scanty earnings. And thrice happy is the man who can boast an income of ten, fifteen, or twenty rupees a month, though the-poorest and least skilled laborers in England would reckon themselves badly paid on as much per week.
We turn from these to the workless tenth and to the-other tenth who eke out a scanty hand-to-mouth existence on the borders of that great and terrible wilderness. But before enumerating and classifying them, there is one other iffipdrtant "qu^stioii which calls for our consideration^