THE VALUE OF A MAN.

Evening Post, Volume XXXIV, Issue 2, 2 July 1887, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE VALUE OF A MAN.

No animal works harder than man, and as a working or domestic animal man may be valued. Dr. Farr has made some curious and interesting calculations as to the value of the agricultural classes. The calculations are not made to j correspond to the working years of man, but allowance is made for the infant and child, who, though not able to work, are valued prospectively; and so again, in old age, when the labour period is passed, and, as an animal, he consumes moro than he produces, his value is considered a minus quantity. The calculations are based upon the Norfolk agricultural classes in which county the infant labourer is worth at the time of birth £5. When he has survived the first dangers of infancy, and has advanced five years nearer the time at which he will become a productive agent, his price rises to no less than £56 ; and this, again, in five years more is something more' than doubled. At the age of twenty-five

years he has obtained his maximum value, £246 ; and he declines afterwards, steadily but slowly, down to \ £138 at fifty years of age, and £1 at the age of seventy. After this age he produces little or nothing, but still he consumes, and when he is eighty years old he is valued at minus £40.