SECTION CCXXIX.. Extent of Luxury in Highly Civilized Times.

EXTENT OF LUXURY IN HIGHLY CIVILIZED TIMES.

The luxury of this second period fills the whole of life and permeates every class of people. Hence we may most easily determine the degree of development a people have attained by the quantity of commodities of a finer quality which are, indeed, not indispensable to life, but which it is desirable should be consumed on as extensive a scale as possible by the nation, for the sake of the fullness of life and the freshness[229-1] of life to which they minister.

Thus, for instance, as civilization has advanced, there has been almost everywhere a transition to a finer quality of the material of which bread is made. The number of consumers of white bread in France in 1700, was 33 per cent. of the population; in 1760, 40; in 1764, 39; in 1791, 37; in 1811, 42; in 1818, 45; in 1839, 60 per cent.[229-2] About 1758, in England and Wales, 3,750,000 of people lived on wheat bread; on barley bread, 739,000; on rye bread, 888,000; on oat bread, 623,000. The cultured southeastern population had almost nothing but wheat bread, while in the north and northwest, oat bread continued to be used a long time; and in Wales only 10 per cent. of the population ate wheat bread. This condition of things in England has since been much improved. But, at the extremities of the Hebrides, nine-tenths of the population still live on barley bread; and in Ireland it was estimated, in 1838, that with 8,000,000 inhabitants, potatoes were the chief article of food of 5,000,000, and oat bread of 2,500,000.[229-3]

And so, the consumption of meat in cities is uniformly much larger than in the country. In the cities of the Prussian monarchy and subject to the slaughter-house tax, it amounted in 1846, per capita: in East Prussia, to 61 lbs.; in Pommerania, to 66; in Posen, to 70; in West Prussia, to 71; in Saxony, to 75; in the Rhine Province, to 83; in Silesia, to 86; in Brandenburg, to nearly 104; in Berlin alone, to 114: an average in the whole country, however, of scarcely 40 lbs. per capita. (Dietrici.) In the kingdom of Saxony, the average consumption of beef and pork was, shortly before 1866, about 50 lbs.; in Dresden alone, 86.7; in Leipzig, 136.9 lbs.[229-4] The consumption of meat in England is exceedingly great, so that, for instance, in several orphan asylums in London, the daily meat ration amounts to an average of from 0.23 to 0.438 lbs. The meat-consumption of a well-to-do family, children and servants included, Porter estimates at 370 lbs. per capita per annum. The meat ration of soldiers in the field amounts in England to 676 grammes a day; in France, to 350.[229-5]

The consumption of sugar in 1734, in England, was about 10 lbs. per capita; in 1845, in the whole of the British Empire, 20-1/3 lbs.; in 1849, almost 25 lbs.; in 1865, over 34 lbs.; but it must not be overlooked here, that in Ireland the consumption of sugar per capita was scarcely over 8 lbs.[229-6] In the German Zollverein, the consumption of sugar, in 1834, amounted to an average of 2-1/2 lbs. per capita; in 1865, to more than 9 lbs. In France, the consumption of the same article rose from 1.33 kilogrammes, the average from 1817 to 1821, to 7.35 lbs. in 1865.[229-7] The population of the Zollverein rose 25.8 per cent. between 1834 and 1847, while the importation of coffee increased 117.5 per cent.; of spices, 58.2; southern fruits, 34.5, and cocoa, 246.2 per cent.[229-8]

A great many of vegetables and fruits, which seem to us to be almost indispensable articles of subsistence, have been cultivated only a short time. Thus the English have been acquainted with artichokes, asparagus, several kinds of beans, salad, etc. only since 1660.[229-9] Even in France, the finer kinds of fruits have appeared on the tables of the middle class only since the beginning of the last century.

The per capita consumption of wool in England, about a generation ago, amounted to about 4 lbs. a year; in Prussia to 1.67; of cloth, to 5.76 and 2.17 ells; of leather, to 3.03 and 2.22 lbs. respectively.[229-10] Of silk goods, England consumes half as much as the rest of all Europe, and an Englishman from 5 to 6 times as much as a Frenchman, although England does not produce a single pound of raw silk.[229-11]