THE AVERAGE ENGLISHMAN.

Press, Volume LVI, Issue 10450, 14 September 1899, Page 4

THE AVERAGE ENGLISHMAN.

Mr Joseph Jacobs has certainly hit upon a new idea in his, not perhaps very happilynamed, article, "The Mean Englishman" in the current" Fortnightly." He constructs an individual whom he calls "William Sproggett," and his family, and sketches his life and circumstances, proceeding simply from the averages afforded by recognised statistics. Thvjs our. berp, - we,, are, told, ■was born at Loughborougb. on January 12th, 1864 ; bis father was born in the same town j but his mother migrated thither from the country. He was married on August 20th, 1892, at fcke age 'of 28.6 years, to Jane Daviea (of Celtic c'loscent), born also at Loughiborough on January 18th, 1866/ and therefore 26.6 years old. They were married in church, which.Sproggett then visited for the first. tJmte since 'his boyhood. Proceeding by the same method our author can assure us that in -ihe seven years since they wene married they have had five children, three boys and two girls; that one of ■the boys has died, and that one of the girls will die before she is five years old. Tie average Englishman, it appears is "5 feet "7 inches in height, and 1501bs in 'weight. "He ean'puir 701bs yrivm in the attitude "of drawing the long bowi and his chest "girth is no less than 36 £nches." His wife Jane; is inferior in these respects, being " only 62 inches in height, 12Qlbs vi wteight, " and can pull only 40Hbs." Notwithstanding their meagre diet (of-which: Mr Jacobs gives us a full account), both, are fairly stout and enjoy tolerable ibeadth, WHKam, it appears, "will die on March 15th, 1932, at "the age of 68, of a disease connected with " the nervous system, Jane will survive "him nearly three years, and die of brexn- " chitis." Sproggett enhabits a fcwirroomed iuousfe,. only occasionally wears a collar, uses neither toothbrush nor handkerchief (except the latter, for carrying his mid-day meal); but "he generally gets shaved on Saturday night." His wages are 24s 9d, for 54 hours a- week; and the chief items of his expenditure are:—l3s 7Jd on food and drink (lOfd of this for alcoholic liquor), and 3s 6d on rent. He takes in no daily newspaiper regularly; and sends every year an averag'eiof 55 letters and 10 postcards. 'Mr Jacobe's idea seems a good one. The average Englishman .probably looms much too small in the <tonSilofenfe!sS ; 'faf England. When we try to think of tihe oy«rage Englishman, we are, as Mr Jacobs says, too much inclined to make a kind of menial compound of Lord Kitchener, Mr Kipling, Mr 0. B. Fry, and (perhaps) Canon Gore. But it is only from such a method Mr Jacobs has painstakingly adopted that any accurate results can be obtained. No man may actually ex?irt called William Sproggett; and any one of the details given may be true in no actual case; and yet the general truth of .the whole is undoubted. Will no one do for the Australian colonies, and for New Zealand, in particular, what Mr Jacobs has done for the Old Country? Interesting as the figures are when only one country is under consideration, they would become ten tinjes as interesting with the possibility of comparison between the average lot of individuala in different communities. Wβ hope some New Zealander who likes statistics will take the hdnt.