This total of 1,200,000 persons represents mostly heads of families, especially those of the commercial and shopkeeping classes, not a few of whom are very rich people, and keep a large household, with many servants.

Considering this circumstance, the 1,200,000 heads of families represent each a number of at least five persons on an average, and in the aggregate 6,000,000 people, or nearly the third part of the whole population. That in a very advanced state of civilization and economical progress such an enormous number of persons should be enabled to live by the comparatively easy occupation of distributing produce, is a monstrous anomaly; for, not only is the number of the real productive classes, with their families included, comparatively small, amounting to only 10,000,000 persons, but these have also to perform all the heavy and dangerous work.

This unjust disproportion between those who are engaged in distributive and productive labour is, not only apparent in their aggregate numbers, but also discoverable in every particular branch of the mercantile and trading classes. In order to furnish some proofs, the author will only scrutinize in detail the number of grocers, butchers, and coal merchants. The census of 1861 enumerates 94,000 grocers in 20,000,000 inhabitants. If these are put down in the round number of 100,000 it will give a proportion of one grocer to every 200 persons of the population. The anomaly of the disproportion of the small number of 200 customers to one dealer becomes the more monstrous, when compared with the economy that the future social state will effect in the distribution of produce.

Each Associated Home accommodating 1,000 persons will have one grocery store attached to it, and as 20,000,000 people will be lodged in 20,000 Associated Homes, there will consequently only be required 20,000 grocery stores; which being situated in the immediate neighbourhood of the kitchen, and communicating with it, will scarcely require an attendant, for the cooks themselves will fetch groceries from the store as occasion may require; and if an attendant were needed in the grocery store, 20,000 of them will easily do the work which is now done by 100,000 grocers and their shopmen. The number of 12,000 coal merchants and 18,000 coal heavers is likewise an exorbitant disproportion between easy and laborious

occupations. The number of butchers compared with the number of the whole population is also out of all reasonable, proportion; for if 68,000 butchers, according to the census, serve 20,000,000 people, every butcher will have to sell and distribute meat to 273 persons; but as there are amongst these many infants, children, and persons, including 2,000,000 of the agricultural labourers, and nearly 1,000,000 of paupers, who seldom or never taste butcher's meat, the number of persons who consume meat is more likely to be 200 customers to one butcher; and if each of them eats half a pound of meat per day, each butcher will have to distribute 100 lbs. of meat daily, which certainly will not be a very laborious task for him.

The excess in the number of persons now engaged in the distribution of grocery, meat, and coal, will at once indicate the great, reductions that will become practicable in the new organization of distributive labour. Entire branches of employments and occupations now engaged in the transactions of money-leading, discounting bills, insuring properties and lives, dealing in shares and funds, loans on pledges, valuations, etc., will become extinct in consequence of the abolition of money. The conversion of private property into national will do away with all owners of property, rent-collectors, auctioneers, etc. By the suppression of luxury, many trades will become greatly diminished, and others totally destroyed. The latter will especially be the case with the numerous confectioners and pastry cooks, who now administer to a depraved taste by selling unwholesome and adulterated articles of luxury.

Through the institution of the Associated Home, all lodginghouses will become superfluous.

An estimate of all the reductions resulting from the abolition of money, property, luxury, and isolated homes, is presented in the following list:

Deducting 121,774 from the grand total of the whole of the distributing classes, the number of 1,117,834 remains, representing employments, all of which admit of extensive reductions. These reductions will greatly benefit those who perform the real hard work in the distribution of produce, and of whom the following list contains their present numbers :-