XXVll prices in Berlin being taken as the base (= 100). In order to allow lor the varying importance of the prices of the different articles, as judged by the normal weekly expenditure of a working-class family, recourse was had to “ weighting,” and for this purpose average quantities estimated from the Budgets shown on p. xx, have been adopted, but “bread and hour” have been divided into 25 lbs. of bread and 2 lbs. of flour (the remaining ¿ lb. being omitted as representing probably various kinds of fancy bread and pastry). For meat only beef and pork have been included, with weights of 2} lbs. and If lbs. respectively. No information as to the average coal consumption per family per week was given in the budgets, but from independent enquiries it appears that an estimate of 1^ cwt. may be taken as approximately correct. The following, therefore, are the quantities of the selected commodities assumed, on the basis of 5,046 weekly budgets, to be consumed by a German working- class family in a normal week :— Coffee ... ... ... Sugar (white granulated) Bacon Cheese Butter Eggs Potatoes fib. 2 lbs. f lb- ¿lb. If lbs. 10 26 lbs. Flour (wheaten) Bread... Milk ... Beef ... Pork ... Coal ... 2 lbs. 25 lbs. 6& qts. 2Í lbs. If lbs. 1 Jr cwt. The predominant prices in each town as ascertained for the various articles are weighted in accordance with the above quantities, the total expenditure so obtained being expressed as a percentage of the corresponding total as compiled for Berlin ; the results are shown in the following Table :—- Prices Index Numbers in Descending Order. Berlin = 100. Town. Index No. Town. Index No. Town. Index No. Barmen Mannheim Mülhausen Stuttgart Munich Nuremberg Remscheid Bremen Chemnitz Dresden Aachen 110 109 109 108 107 107 105 105 1(>5 103 103 Düsseldorf Elberfeld Plauen Königsberg Brunswick Solingen Aschaffenburg Leipzig Crefeld Berlin Stettin 102 I Essen 102 102 101 101 101 101 101 Zwickau Oschersleben Stassf urt Magdeburg ... Hamburg-Altona Dantzig Bochum 100 i Dortmund 100 99 Breslau Königshütte... 99 98 98 98 97 97 97 96 96 95 86 There are thus no less than 20 out of the 33 towns which have a prices index number higher than Berlin. The total difference between the highest and lowest towns is 24 points, as compared with 72 points in the case of rents ; if, however, Königshütte (whose index number for prices is very low) be excluded, the maximum difference in price levels is only 15 points. It will be observed that five out of the six towns at the head of the list are situated in South Germany. The following Table shows the prices index numbers for each of the geographical groups for which rent index numbers have already d 2 29088