the People of London". Booth's sources of information included the census, school board attendance officer reports, interviews with poor law boards of guardians, teachers, police, sanitary inspectors, trade union officials, charity workers and the clergy. Booth's original intention was to disprove what he considered to be exaggerated estimates to the extent of poverty in London. In fact his findings confirmed these estimates to be lower than to the actual level of poverty in the capital. Booth showed that thirty per cent of the population of London were living below the "poverty line", a minimum income of between eighteen and twenty-one shillings per week for a family with three children was the case for the majority.
             Seebohm Rowntree's "Poverty: A Study of Town Life" was influence by Booth's work. Rowntree investigated his own city of York. Taking Booth's idea of the "poverty line" he went on to distinguish between "primary" and "secondary" poverty. Primary poverty existed where income was insufficient to meet basic needs; Secondary poverty was where the income was sufficient but was misspent so as to produce poverty. Rowntree identified the main causes of primary poverty as low wages, large families, unemployment, old age or the death of the chief wage earner. His findings that nearly twenty-eight per cent of York's population were living in poverty confirmed Booth's figures for London.
             Public conscience was also shocked by the fact that thirty-four per cent of recruits for military service in the Boer War failed to meet the army's standard of height, weight and eyesight, at a rejection rate of one in three. The Boer War led to a campaign for national efficiency, which flourished at the turn of the century. This reflected concern at the slower growth of the economy and the relative decline in industrial production compared ...