The lack of fixed local habitation is an evil common to all classes of city dwellers.

But among the lower working-classes "flitting" is a chronic condition.

The School Board visitor's book showed that in a representative district of Bethnal Green, out of 1204 families, no less than 530 had removed within a twelvemonth, although such an account would not include the lowest and most "shifty" class of all.

Between November 1885 and July 1886 it was found that 20 per cent.

of the London electorate had changed residence.
To what extent the uncertain conditions of employment impose upon the poor this changing habitation cannot be yet determined; but the absence of the educative influence of a fixed abode is one of the most demoralizing influences in the life of the poor.