ABSTRACT
M ID-VICT ORIAN England is by now far enoughdistant in time for it to have acquired certain standarddescriptions, intended to epitomize its economic character. Unfortunately for those who seek enlightenment some of the descriptions are not, at first glance, easy to reconcile with each other. 'The great Victorian boom', 'the good years', and even more gilded labels have been attached to the third quarter of the nineteenth century. But then even a summary account has to move forward only a very few years, recognize that a falling cost of living was easing the condition of the masses, and yet draw attention to 'the submerged tenth' (or larger fraction) and refer to the hundreds of thousands living 'below the poverty line', i.e, without the means to buy enough necessities to keep themselves physically healthy. It seems a strange kind of good years that had such a state of affairs at the end of the sequence; perhaps 'good' really means 'better' or 'less bad'.
