Thomas Pitt is the commander of the Bow Street Station. As such, he is considered middle class, along with bank tellers, teachers, senior clerks, reporters, minor civil servants, and some shopkeepers. His salary range would have been between £150 and £200 annually, perhaps a little more since he commands a station. As Mitchell writes in Daily Life in Victorian England, at this salary, he could afford a house in a cheaper subdivision of London, commute by rail to his job, spend a small amount of money on the necessary clothes for his profession, and have one servant, a young maid-of-all-work.

His wife would do her own dressmaking and remake hand-me-down clothing for the children. If the family were small, the children would receive a board school education, similar to a public school education in the United States. Pitt has all of these things. He also has...