ABSTRACT

T o the eye of the scientific observer, human society, as it lives and moves at the present day, embodies an endless variety of survivals from almost every age since the dawn of history; and nowhere is the past more closely intermingled with the present than in the complicated and world-wide ramifications of modern industry. As a concrete illustration of this truth it will suffice to take the case of any English town of average size-with a population of, say, between 50,000 and 100,000-and to enumerate the main industrial channels through which the primary wants of the inhabitants are supplied.