ROUND ABOUT A POUND A WEEK 
 
ROUND ABOUT 
 A POUND A WEEK 
 
 BY 
 
 MRS. PEMBER REEVES 
 
 S 
 
 SECOND EDITION 
 
 LONDON 
 
 G. BELL AND SONS, LTD. 
 1914 
 
TO 
 MY FELLOW-WORKER 
 
 E. C L. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 I AM glad to take this opportunity to acknowledge 
 the use I have made of a manuscript written by 
 Mrs. Charlotte Wilson, Hon. Secretary of the 
 Fabian Women's Group. The manuscript was 
 founded on a lecture, entitled "The Economic 
 Disintegration of the Family," delivered by Mrs. 
 Wilson to the Fabian Society in June, 1909. 
 Not only ideas contained in the lecture, but also 
 some of the wording of the manuscript, have been 
 used in the last two chapters. 
 
 I wish also to thank Dr. Ethel Bentham for 
 the invaluable professional service rendered by 
 her during the five years of the investigation. 
 
 M. S. REEVES. 
 
 
 VI 1 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. THE DISTRICT I 
 II. THE PEOPLE - 
 
 III. HOUSING - 21 
 
 IV. FURNITURE SLEEPING ACCOMMODATION 
 
 EQUIPMENT FOR COOKING AND BATHING- 46 
 
 V. THRIFT - 66 
 
 VI. BUDGETS - 75 
 
 VII. FOOD I CHIEF ARTICLES OF DIET - - 94 
 
 VIII. BUYING, STORING, AND CARING FOR FOOD - 104 
 
 IX. ACTUAL MENUS OF SEVERAL WORKING MEN'S 
 
 FAMILIES - 113 
 X. AMOUNT SPENT A HEAD ON FOOD PER 
 
 WEEK, PER DAY - - 132 
 
 XI. THE POOR AND MARRIAGE - - 146 
 
 xii. MOTHERS' DAYS - 159 
 
 XIII. THE CHILDREN - 176 
 
 XIV. THE PEOPLE WHO ARE OUT OF WORK 195 
 
 XV. THE STANDARD OF COMFORT - 21 1 
 
 XVI. THE STATE AS GUARDIAN - 223 
 
 viii 
 
ROUND ABOUT 
 A POUND A WEEK 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE DISTRICT 
 
 TAKE a tram from Victoria to Vauxhall Station. 
 Get out under the railway arch which faces 
 Vauxhall Bridge, and there you will find Ken- 
 nington Lane. The railway arch roofs in a din 
 which reduces the roar of trains continually 
 passing overhead to a vibrating, muffled rumble. 
 From either end of the arch comes a close pro- 
 cession of trams, motor-buses, brewers' drays, 
 coal-lorries, carts filled with unspeakable material 
 for glue factory and tannery, motor-cars, coster- 
 barrows, and people. It is a stopping-place 
 for tramcars and motor-buses; therefore little 
 knots of agitated persons continually collect on 
 both pathways, and dive between the vehicles 
 and descending passengers in order to board the 
 particular bus or tram they desire. At rhythmic 
 intervals all traffic through the arch is suspended 
 to allow a flood of trams, buses, drays, and vans, 
 to surge and rattle and bang across the opening 
 of the archway which faces the river. 
 
? THE DISTRICT 
 
 At the opposite end there is no cross-current. 
 The trams slide away to the right towards the 
 Oval. In front is Kennington Lane, and to the 
 left, at right angles, a narrow street connects with 
 Vauxhall Walk, leading farther on into Lambeth 
 Walk, both locally better known as The Walk. 
 Such is the western gateway to the district 
 stretching north to Lambeth Road, south to 
 Lansdowne Road, and east to Wai worth Road, 
 where live the people whose lives form the subject 
 of this book. 
 
 They are not the poorest people of the district. 
 Far from it ! They are, putting aside the trades- 
 men whose shops line the big thoroughfares such 
 as Kennington Road or Kennington Park Road, 
 some of the more enviable and settled inhabitants 
 of this part of the world. The poorest people 
 the river-side casual, the workhouse in-and-out, 
 the bar-room loafer are anxiously ignored by 
 these respectable persons whose work is per- 
 manent, as permanency goes in Lambeth, and 
 whose wages range from i8s. to 305. a week. 
 
 They generally are somebody's labourer, mate, 
 or handyman. Painters' labourers, plumbers' 
 labourers, builders' handymen, dustmen's mates, 
 printers' labourers, potters' labourers, trouncers 
 for carmen, are common amongst them. Or they 
 may be fish-fryers, tailors' pressers, feather- 
 cleaners' assistants, railway-carriage washers, 
 employees of dust contractors, carmen for 
 Borough Council contractors, or packers of various 
 
THE DISTRICT 3 
 
 descriptions. They are respectable men in full 
 work, at a more or less top wage, young, with 
 families still increasing, and they will be lucky if 
 they are never worse off than they now are. 
 Their wives are quiet, decent, " keep themselves- 
 to-themselves " kind of women, and the children 
 are the most punctual and regular scholars, the 
 most clean-headed children of the poorer schools 
 in Kennington and Lambeth. 
 
 The streets they live in are monotonously and 
 drearily decent, lying back from the main arteries, 
 and with little traffic other than a stray barrel- 
 organ, a coal-lorry selling by the hundredweight 
 sack, or a taxi-cab going to or from its driver's 
 dinner at home. At certain hours in the day 
 before morning school, at midday, and after four 
 o'clock these narrow streets become full of 
 screaming, running, shouting children. Early in 
 the morning men come from every door and pass 
 out of sight. At different times during the even- 
 ing the same men straggle home again. At all 
 other hours the street is quiet and desperately dull. 
 Less ultra-respectable neighbourhoods may have 
 a certain picturesqueness, or give a sense of com- 
 munity of interest or of careless comradeship, 
 with their untidy women chatting in the doorways 
 and their unoccupied men lounging at the street 
 corners; but in these superior streets a kind of 
 dull aloofness seems to be the order of the day. 
 
 The inhabitants keep themselves to themselves, 
 and watch the doings of the other people from 
 
4 THE DISTRICT 
 
 behind window curtains, knowing perfectly that 
 every incoming and outgoing of their own is also 
 jealously recorded by critical eyes up and down 
 the street. A sympathetic stranger walking the 
 length of one of these thoroughfares feels the 
 atmosphere of criticism. The rent-collector, the 
 insurance agent, the coal-man, may pass the time 
 of day with worn women in the doorways, but a 
 friendly smile from the stranger receives no 
 response. A weekly caller becomes the abashed 
 object of intense interest on the part of everybody 
 in the street, from the curious glances of the green- 
 grocer's lady at the corner to the appraising stare 
 of the fat little baker who always manages to be 
 on his doorstep across the road. And everywhere 
 along the street is the visitor conscious of eyes 
 which disappear from behind veiled windows. 
 This consciousness accentuates the dispiriting 
 outlook. 
 
 The houses are outwardly decent two stories 
 of grimy brick. The roadway is narrow, but on 
 the whole well kept, and on the pavement outside 
 many doors there is to be noticed, in a greater or 
 less condition of freshness, a semicircle of hearth- 
 stone, which has for its radius the length of the 
 housewife's arm as she kneels on the step. In 
 some streets little paved alley- ways lead behind 
 the front row of houses, and twist and turn among 
 still smaller dwellings at the back dwellings 
 where the front door leads downwards into a 
 room instead of upwards into a passage. Dis- 
 
THE DISTRICT 5 
 
 tricts of this kind cover dreary acres the same 
 little two-story house, with or without an in- 
 conceivably drearier basement, with the same 
 kind of baker's shop at the corner faced by the 
 same kind of greengrocer's shop opposite. The 
 ugly, constantly-recurring school buildings are a 
 relief to the spirit oppressed by the awful 
 monotony. 
 
 The people who live in these places are not 
 really more like one another than the people who 
 live in Belgrave Square or South Kensington. 
 But there is no mixture of rich and poor, no 
 startling contrast, no crossing-sweeper and no 
 super-taxpayer, and the first impression is that of 
 uniformity. As a matter of fact, the character- 
 istics of Mrs. Smith of Kennington and the charac- 
 teristics of Mrs. Brown who lives next door are 
 more easily to be differentiated by a stranger in 
 the street than are the characteristics of Mrs. 
 Smythe of Bayswater from those of Mrs. Browne 
 who occupies the house next to her. 
 
 Mrs. Smith and Mrs. Brown, though they may 
 never be seen by the passer-by, are able to imprint 
 their personality on the street because their ways 
 are open, and meant to be open, to all whom it may 
 concern. Mrs. Smith likes red ochre at her door, 
 in spite of the children's boots messing it all over 
 the floor. Moreover, she likes to cover the big 
 flagstone in front of the door, and two lesser 
 stones, one on each side; she makes the edges 
 coincide with the cracks, and produces a two- 
 
6 THE DISTRICT 
 
 winged effect of deep importance. It is likely 
 that Mrs. Smith's mother lived in a village where 
 not to do your doorstep thus was a social sin, 
 where perhaps there was but one flagstone, and 
 Mrs. Smith in her childhood was accustomed to 
 square edges. 
 
 Mrs. Brown " can't abide that nasty stuff," 
 and uses good hearthstone, as her mother taught 
 her to do. Mrs. Brown prefers also the semi- 
 circular sweep of the arm which secures the 
 rounded edge and curved effect which satisfy her 
 sense of propriety and usualness. 
 
 Mrs. Smith has a geranium in a pot in her front 
 window, and the lace curtains which shield her 
 privacy behind it are starched and blued according 
 to some severe precedent ignored by the other 
 ladies of the neighbourhood. 
 
 Mrs. Brown goes in for a scheme of window 
 decoration which shows the dirt less. She has 
 a row of red and yellow cocoa tins to make a 
 bright effect. 
 
 The merest outsider calling for the first time on 
 Mrs. Smith knows her beforehand for the decent, 
 cleanly soul she is, and only wonders whether the 
 struggle of life has worn her temper to fiddle- 
 strings or whether some optimistic strain in her 
 nature still allows her to hope on. The same 
 outsider looking at Mrs. Brown's front door and 
 window would realize her to be one who puts a 
 good face on things, and, if it happened to be the 
 right time of a day which was not washing-day, 
 
THE DISTRICT 7 
 
 probably would expect, after the proper cere- 
 monial had been gone through, to be asked in to 
 sit behind the cocoa tins. 
 
 Who could tell anything half so interesting 
 from the front doors of Mrs. Smythe and Mrs 
 Browne of Bayswater ? Who could tell, on 
 meeting each of these ladies face to face, more 
 than her official age and the probable state of her 
 husband's purse ? 
 
 The children of the street are equally different 
 from one another both in character and appear- 
 ance, and are often startlingly good-looking. 
 They have shrill voices, clumsy clothes, the look 
 of being small for their age, and they are liable 
 to be comfortably dirty, but there the character- 
 istics they have in common cease. They may be 
 wonderfully fair, with delicate skins and pale 
 hair; they may have red hair, with snub-nosed, 
 freckled faces; or they may be dark and intense, 
 with long, thick eyelashes and slender, lithe 
 bodies. Some are apathetic, some are restless. 
 They are often intelligent; but while some are 
 able to bring their intelligence to bear on their 
 daily life, others seem quite unable to do so. They 
 are abnormally noisy. Had they been well 
 housed, well fed, well clothed, and well tended, 
 from birth, what kind of raw material would 
 they have shown themselves to be ? 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 THE PEOPLE 
 
 IT was this question which started an investiga- 
 tion which has been carried on for four years by 
 a committee of the Fabian Women's Group. A 
 sum of money was placed at the disposal of this 
 committee in order to enable them to study the 
 effect on mother and child of sufficient nourish- 
 ment before and after birth. Access was obtained 
 to the list of out-patients of a well-known lying- 
 in hospital; names and addresses of expectant 
 mothers were taken from the list, and a couple 
 of visitors were instructed to undertake the 
 weekly task of seeing each woman in her own 
 home, supplying the nourishment, and noting 
 the effects. From as long as three months before 
 birth, if possible, till the child was a year old, the 
 visits were to continue. The committee decided 
 that the wives of men receiving over 26s. a week 
 were likely to have already sufficient nourishment, 
 while the wives of men out of work or receiving 
 less than i8s. a week were likely to be living 
 in a state of such misery that the temptatipn to 
 let the rest of the family share in the mother's 
 and baby's nourishment would be too great. 
 
 8 
 
THE PEOPLE 9 
 
 They therefore only dealt with cases where the 
 wages ranged between i8s. and 26s. a week. 
 After two years' experience they raised the higher 
 limit to 305. 
 
 For the convenience of visiting it was necessary 
 to select an area. The district described in the 
 previous chapter was chosen because it is within 
 reach of the weighing centre, where each infant 
 could be brought once a fortnight to see the doctor 
 and have its weight recorded. A member of the 
 committee who is a doctor interviewed each 
 woman before the visits began, in order to ascer- 
 tain if her health and her family history were 
 such that a normal baby might be expected. It 
 was at first proposed to rule out disease, but 
 pulmonary and respiratory disease were found to 
 be so common that to rule them out would be 
 to refuse about half the cases. It was therefore 
 decided to regard such a condition of health as 
 normal, and to refuse only such cases of active 
 or malignant disease in the parents as might, in 
 the doctor's opinion, completely wreck the child's 
 chance of a healthy life. 
 
 Drink, on the other hand, the committee had 
 expected to find a normal condition, and had 
 proposed the acceptance of moderate drinking. 
 Experience, however, went to prove that married 
 men in full work who keep their job on such a 
 wage do not and cannot drink. The is. 6d. or 2s. 
 which they keep for themselves has to pay for 
 their own clothes, perhaps fares to and from 
 
io THE PEOPLE 
 
 work, smoking and drinking. It does not allow 
 much margin for drunkenness. A man whose 
 wife declared him to be " spiteful " on Saturday 
 nights was certainly the worse for drink on 
 Saturday nights; but never once during sixteen 
 months of weekly visiting did he omit to bring 
 his wife her full allowance. He had kept his job 
 for many years, and the explanation is that he 
 was given tips at the theatre for which he worked. 
 The tips he, not unnaturally, considered to be 
 peculiarly his own. 
 
 One other man, who could make fair wages 
 when in work, turned out thoroughly unsatis- 
 factory. He was not a drunkard, but he would 
 have been if he could have afforded it. Other- 
 wise the record is fairly clear. Men who earned 
 overtime money or who received tips might 
 spend some of it on beer, but the regular wage 
 was too close a fit to allow of much indulgence. 
 Many of the men were teetotallers, and some did 
 not even smoke. 
 
 It was found to be necessary, in order to secure 
 the success of the investigation, to inaugurate a 
 system of accurate accounts. In no case were 
 these accounts already in being, and it was there- 
 fore the task of the visitors to teach each woman 
 in turn to keep a record of her expenditure for 
 the week. As the greater part of this volume 
 is to do with these weekly budgets, this is a good 
 opportunity to explain why they are credible 
 evidence of real conditions. 
 
THE PEOPLE ii 
 
 A working man's wife in receipt of a regular 
 allowance divides it as follows: Rent; burial 
 insurance; coal and light; cleaning materials; 
 clothing; food. A short experience in helping 
 her to sort her items on paper shows the investi- 
 gator how to prove their accuracy. Rent is easy. 
 There is always the rent-book if the family deals 
 direct with the landlord; and if the rooms are 
 sublet from the real tenant, the woman who 
 sublets them is only too anxious to explain either 
 that rent is owing or that it is paid regularly, and 
 how much a week it is. Burial insurance is easy. 
 The insurance-book tells the whole story. With 
 regard to such items as coal, gas, soap, and food, 
 experience enables an intelligent investigator to 
 compare accounts of women who do not know of 
 one another's existence in such a manner as to 
 know, almost before the woman has spoken, what 
 she is likely to be spending. If a woman says that 
 she is buying i cwt. of coal a week in the winter, 
 and paying is. 6d. for it, dozens of other accounts 
 of which she knows nothing corroborate her. If 
 she says she is burning if cwt. in the winter, and 
 spending 2s. 7Jd., the price is known to be cor- 
 rect ; it only remains to question the quantity. In 
 one case the reason is that the rooms are base- 
 ment rooms, very damp and very dark. In another 
 there are eight children,, with a very large copper 
 fire to be kept going on washing-days. In a 
 third no gas is laid on, and all the cooking has to 
 be done by the stove. All these conditions are 
 
12 THE PEOPLE 
 
 there to be seen. With regard to food the same 
 test applies. Is the budget peculiar, or does it 
 bear out thirty others, allowing, of course, for 
 difference in size of family and in size of income ? 
 If it is peculiar, why ? The explanation is 
 generally simple and obvious. In cases where 
 there is no explanation of which there have 
 been two only the family is not visited any 
 further. As a matter of fact, the budgets have 
 borne out each other in the most striking manner. 
 There seems to be so little choice in the manner 
 of keeping a family on 2os. a week. 
 
 The women were with one consent appalled at 
 the idea of keeping accounts. Not that they did 
 not " know it in their heads," as they anxiously 
 explained ; but the clumsy writing and the difficult 
 spelling, and the huge figures which refused to 
 keep within any appointed bounds, and wandered 
 at will about the page, thoroughly daunted 
 them. 
 
 Eight women were found who could neither 
 read nor write. They said that it was not thought 
 of much consequence when they were girls; but 
 they evidently found it extremely humiliating 
 now, from the difficulty with which the acknow- 
 ledgment of their disability was pumped out of 
 them. Of these eight, three had husbands who 
 undertook the task for them. The men's hand- 
 writing was excellent, the figures and spelling clear 
 and correct, but at first details were lamentably 
 absent. " Groceries," even " sundries," were 
 
THE PEOPLE 13 
 
 common entries, and, as the scribe was always 
 away at work, the visitor was left to the mercy 
 of bursts of memory on the part of the mother, 
 whose anxious efforts to please at any cost might 
 land everybody concerned in further difficulties. 
 The only method in such cases was to make her 
 sit down and shut her eyes, pretend the visitor 
 was her " young man " (generic term for hus- 
 band), and think it out all over again. Pencil in 
 hand, the eager listener caught and made accounts 
 out of such recollections as these: " 'E give me 
 twenty-two bob a Satterday. After I put Ernie 
 ter bed I went shoppin' in the Walk." Long 
 pause. " I know I got 'arf a shoulder er mutton at 
 is. gd., an' 3 pounds er pertaters, and they was ijd., 
 an' a cabbage w'ich 'e said was as fresh as a daisy, 
 but it turned out to be all f ainty like w'en I come 
 to cook it." When the record is taken down in 
 proper form, it is compared with the masculine 
 accounts. If the two agree, jubilation; if not, 
 why not ? And we begin all over again. After 
 a few weeks of such experiences the husband 
 always reformed. 
 
 Other illiterate women employed an eldest 
 child of perhaps ten or eleven years of age. In 
 these cases a certain kind of painstaking accuracy 
 could be relied upon, but, far from resorting to 
 masculine short-cuts, these little secretaries 
 usually went to the other extreme, and gave way 
 to a prolix style, founded, doubtless, on the 
 maternal manner of recollecting. One account, 
 
14 THE PEOPLE 
 
 kept in large copybook hand by Emrna, aged 
 eleven, began as follows: "Mr G's wages was 
 19 bob out of that e took thruppons for es diner 
 witch is not mutch e bein sutch a arty man. 
 The rent was six and Mrs G payed fower an six 
 because Bobby's boots was off is feet and his 
 knew ones was one an six witch makes six and 
 that leaves 12 an 9 and out of that," etc. It 
 took four pages of painstaking manuscript in a 
 school exercise-book to complete one week. This 
 serial story had to be reduced, though with regret, 
 to the limits of ordinary accounts. 
 
 Other young scribes had special tricks, such as 
 turning their fractions upside down or running 
 two or more words into one. " Leggerbeef " and 
 " dryaddick " recurred week after week in one 
 book, and " Iberpeces " in another. The first 
 two only had to be pronounced to solve their 
 own riddle, but the third had to be worried 
 through recollection after recollection till it 
 turned out to mean " i Ib. of pieces," or i Ib. of 
 scraps of meat. 
 
 The women who kept their accounts for them- 
 selves were found to be better arithmeticians than 
 they were writers. Their addition had a dis- 
 concerting way of being correct, even when the 
 visitor seemed to get a different total. But, then, 
 the spelling was sometimes beyond the sharpened 
 wits of the most experienced Fabian women to 
 comprehend. Great care had to be taken not to 
 hurt their feelings as they sat anxiously watching 
 
THE PEOPLE 15 
 
 the visitor wrestling with the ungainly collection 
 of words and figures. " Coull " did not mean 
 coal, which appeared as " coles " quite clearly 
 lower down. It was Lambeth for cow-heel. 
 " Earrins too d " meant " herrings, 2d." 
 " Sewuitt " is simple, more so than " suit," a 
 common form of " suet "; but " wudanole " and 
 " curince " gave some trouble. They stood for 
 " wood and oil " and " currants." Seeing the 
 visitor hesitate over the item "yearn id.," the 
 offended mother wrote next week " yearn is for 
 mending sokes." 
 
 Some of the women in fact, the majority 
 wrote a good hand and spelled fairly well. Those 
 who had before marriage been in work where 
 anything of the kind was expected of them such 
 as that of a tea-shop waitress or of a superior 
 domestic servant quickly turned into interested 
 and competent accountants. But the older 
 women, and those who had had no reason to use a 
 pencil after leaving school, had completely lost 
 the power of connecting knowledge which might 
 be in their minds with marks made by their hand 
 on a piece of paper. These women were curiously 
 efficient in a kind of mental arithmetic, though 
 utterly at sea directly pencil touched paper. 
 On the whole, accounts came into being sooner 
 than at first sight seemed possible. 
 
 The women were suspicious and reserved. 
 They were all legally married women, because 
 the hospital from whose lists their names had been 
 
16 THE PEOPLE 
 
 taken dealt only with married women. They con- 
 quered their reserve in most cases, but not in all. 
 Some were grateful; some were critical. At the 
 beginning of each case the woman seemed to steel 
 herself to sit patiently and bear it while the 
 expected questions or teaching of something 
 should follow. She generally appeared to be 
 conscious that the strange lady would probably 
 like to sit in a draught, and, if complimented on 
 her knowledge of the value of fresh air and open 
 windows, she might repeat in a weary manner 
 commonplaces on the subject which had obvi- 
 ously been picked up from nurse, doctor, or 
 sanitary inspector. 
 
 They spoke well of their husbands when they 
 spoke of them at all, but it is the children chiefly 
 who fill their lives. The woman who said, " My 
 young man's that good ter me I feel as if somethink 
 nice 'ad 'appened every time 'e comes in," was 
 obviously speaking the simple truth, and she was 
 more articulate than most of the others, whose 
 " 'E's all right " might mean as much. Another 
 woman introduced the subject as follows: " 'E's 
 a good 'usbin. 'E ain't never kep' back me 
 twenty-three bob, but 'e's that spiteful Satter- 
 day nights I 'as ter keep the children from 'im.'' 
 " And what do you do ?" asked the interested 
 visitor. " Oh, me ? That's all right. I'm 
 cookin' 'is supper," she explained, as though to a 
 child. 
 
 On the whole they seemed to expect judgment 
 
THE PEOPLE 17 
 
 to be passed on the absent man according to the 
 amount he allowed them. Many were the 
 anxious explanations when the sum was less than 
 2os. that it was " all 'e got," or that " 'e only 
 keeps one and six, an' 'e buys 'is does 'isself, an' 
 'e's teetotler an' don't 'ardly smoke at all." The 
 idea among them, roughly speaking, seemed to 
 be that if he allowed less than 2os. explanations 
 were required; if 2os., nothing need be said 
 beyond " It ain't much, but you can't grumble." 
 If over 2os., it was rather splendid, and deserved 
 a word of notice about once in six weeks, when it 
 would be good manners for the visitor to say, 
 " I see Mr. A. never fails to bring you your twenty- 
 two," and Mrs. A. would probably answer, " 'E's 
 all right," but would look gratified. 
 
 The homes are kept in widely different states 
 of order, as is to be expected. There is the 
 rigidly clean and tidy, the fairly clean and tidy, 
 the moderately clean but very untidy. The differ- 
 ence depends on many factors: the number 
 of children, the amount of money to spend, 
 the number of rooms, the personality of the 
 husband and the personality of the wife. Six 
 or eight children give a great deal of work, and 
 leave very little time in which to do it. In a 
 family of that number there is nearly certain, 
 besides the baby, to be an ex-baby, and even 
 perhaps an ex-ex-baby, all at home to be looked 
 after all day long and to create fresh disorder 
 every minute. The amount of money to spend 
 
 a 
 
i8 THE PEOPLE 
 
 affects cleanliness very closely. It decides the 
 number of rooms ; it decides the amount of soap 
 and of other cleaning materials and utensils; 
 and it probably decides the question of water 
 laid on or water to be carried up from the back- 
 yard, and, when used, down again. A family of 
 four children in one room is a problem. Two 
 may be at school part of the day, but two will 
 be at home all the time, and there will be no 
 moment when the mother can put them to sleep 
 in another room and get rid of them while she 
 washes and cleans . Her chance of peace or method 
 is small with the always recurring work of the 
 dinner to cook and the utensils to wash, with the 
 children ever present in the same room. 
 
 But the personality of the parents is, of course, 
 the chief cause of order or disorder. A man who 
 loves order has a great influence for order, and a 
 man who likes to go to bed in his boots and spit 
 on the floor has an almost overwhelming influence 
 in the other direction. He may be an equally 
 good fellow in all other respects, but his wife, if 
 she has a tidy nature, may quarrel bitterly with 
 him ; whereas if she is more easy-going she may 
 remain his good friend, through not feeling con- 
 stant irritation and insult because of his ways. 
 It is a fact that a woman the law of whose being 
 is cleanliness and order at all costs may, to a 
 slovenly man, make a most tiresome wife. Her 
 little home may be shining and spotless as far 
 as anything can be shining and spotless in Lam- 
 
THE PEOPLE 19 
 
 beth at the cost of all her vitality and all her 
 temper. She herself may, as a result of her 
 desperate battle with dirt and discouragement, 
 be a scold and an unreasonable being. She cannot 
 be got away from in two rooms where a light and 
 fire can only be afforded in one, and she may be 
 the greatest trial in an always difficult life. In 
 such homes as i a week can buy in London, the 
 women who do not insist upon doing the impos- 
 sible, and fretting themselves and everybody else 
 because it is impossible, often arrive at better 
 results with regard at least to the human beings 
 about them than the women who put furniture 
 first and the peace of the family second. And 
 this even if the rooms in their charge do look as 
 though their dark places would not bear inspec- 
 tion. The mother who is not disturbed by a 
 little mud on the floor has vitality left to deal 
 with more important matters. 
 
 To manage a husband and six children in three 
 rooms on round about i a week needs, first 
 and foremost, wisdom and loving-kindness, and 
 after that as much cleanliness and order as can 
 be squeezed in. The case where the man loves 
 order and the woman is careless may also be 
 prolific of strained relations between the parents. 
 But a steady woman who is not as tidy as her 
 husband might wish has many ways of producing 
 a semblance of order which makes for peace while 
 he is there, and the friction is less likely to be 
 intense. Of course, if both parents are orderly 
 
20 THE PEOPLE 
 
 by nature all is well. The home will be clean, 
 and the children will be brought up in tidy ways, 
 much to their advantage. But if there are to be 
 constant and bitter recriminations over the state 
 of the house, better, for the man's sake, the 
 children's sake, and the woman's sake, a dingy 
 room where peace and quiet are than a spotless 
 abode where no love is. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 HOUSING 
 
 How does a working man's wife bring up a family 
 on 2os. a week ? Assuming that there are four 
 children, and that it costs 45. a week to feed a 
 child, there would be but 45. left on which to 
 feed both parents, and nothing at all for coal, 
 gas, clothes, insurance, soap, or rent. Four 
 shillings is the amount allowed the foster-mother 
 for food in the case of a child boarded out by 
 some Boards of Guardians ; therefore it would seem 
 to be a justifiable figure to reckon upon. But for 
 a woman with 203. a week to spend it is evidently 
 ridiculously high. If the calculation were to be 
 made upon half this sum, would it be possible ? 
 The food for the children in that case would 
 amount to 8s. To allow the same amount to 
 each parent as to each child would not be an 
 extravagance, and we should on that basis arrive 
 at the sum of I2S. a week for the food of six 
 people. That would leave 8s. for all other 
 expenses. But rent alone may come to 6s. or 
 75., and how could the woman on 2os. a week 
 manage with is., or perhaps 2s., for coal, gas, 
 insurance, clothes, cleaning materials, and thrift ? 
 
 21 
 
22 HOUSING 
 
 The usual answer to a question of this kind is 
 that the poor are very extravagant . It is no answer. 
 It does not fit the question. But what matter if 
 only it saves people from thinking ? Another 
 answer sometimes given is that everything in 
 districts where people are poor is cheaper, because 
 the people are poor, than it would be in districts 
 where people are rich. Now, is that so ? If it 
 were, it might in some degree help to solve the 
 problem. 
 
 To take the item of rent: a single room in 
 Lambeth, 15 feet by 12 feet, upstairs, with two 
 windows a good room costs a poor man 45. 
 a week. A house containing eighteen rooms in 
 South Kensington, for rent, rates, and taxes, may 
 cost a rich man 250 a year. If the rich man 
 were to pay 45. a week for every 20 square 
 yards of his floor space, he would pay, not 250 
 a year, but 285. If he were to pay 45. a week 
 for the same amount of cubic space for which the 
 Lambeth man is paying his 43., he would pay, 
 not 250 a year, but 500. Added to which he 
 gets an elaborate system of water laid on (hot 
 and cold), baths, waste pipes and sinks from top 
 to bottom of the house. He also gets an amount 
 of coal-cellarage which enables him to buy his 
 coal cheap, and he gets good air and light and 
 space round his house, so that he can keep his 
 doctor's bills down. He certainly has a better 
 bargain for his 250 a year than the poor man 
 has for his 43. a week. Therefore it is not true 
 
HOUSING 23 
 
 to say that a family can be brought up on 2os. 
 a week in Lambeth because a poor man can make 
 a better bargain over his rent than can a rich 
 man. As a matter of fact, we see that he actually 
 pays more per cubic foot of space than the rich 
 man does. 
 
 A comparison might be made in something like 
 the following way : 
 
 A middle-class 
 well - to - do man 
 with income of 
 2,000 
 
 A middle-class 
 comfortable man, 
 with income of 
 500 
 
 A poor man 
 with 245. a week, 
 or 62 8s. a year, 
 
 might pay in 
 rent, rates, and 
 taxes, 250 
 
 might pay in 
 rent, rates, and 
 taxes, 85 
 
 might pay in 
 rent, rates, and 
 taxes, 8s. a 
 week, or ^20 i6s. 
 a year 
 
 a proportion of 
 his income 
 which is equal to 
 one-eighth. 
 
 a proportion of 
 his income 
 which is equal to 
 about one-sixth. 
 
 a proportion of 
 his income 
 which is equal to 
 one-third. 
 
 If the man with 2,000 a year paid one-third of 
 his income in rent, rates, and taxes, he would pay 
 666 a year, while the man with 500 a year 
 would pay 166, and they would both be better 
 able to afford these sums than the poor man is 
 able to afford his 20 i6s. Allowing that each of 
 them has a wife and four children to maintain, 
 there would at least be enough left in both families 
 to give sufficient nourishment to every member. 
 Fewer servants might be kept, there might be 
 less travelling, plainer clothes, and less saving, 
 
24 HOUSING 
 
 but enough to eat there would be. But the poor 
 man,, having no expenditure other than food 
 which can be cut down, is obliged, in order to pay 
 one-third of his income in rent, to cut down 
 food. 
 
 The chief item in every poor budget is rent, 
 and on the whole and roughly speaking it is safe 
 to say that a family with three or more children 
 is likely to be spending between 75. and 8s. a 
 week on rent alone. Why do they spend so much 
 when, as we see, it must mean cutting down such 
 a primary necessary as food ? 
 
 To find the answer to this question, an analysis 
 was made of the conditions of thirty-one families 
 with three or more children who happened to 
 come within the scope of the investigation. The 
 analysis took the form of a comparison of the 
 death-rate in those families as related to the 
 number of children in each, the household allow- 
 ance of each, and the amount paid in rent by each. 
 Household allowance was chosen rather than 
 wage, as being necessarily in closer touch with 
 household expenditure than is the actual wage, 
 from which a varying amount of pocket-money 
 for the man is generally taken. 
 
 Amount paid in rent was chosen rather than 
 number of rooms, because low rent, though often 
 meaning fewer rooms, may quite as likely mean 
 basement rooms, or unusually small rooms, or 
 rooms in a very old cottage below the level of an 
 alley- way. One good upstairs room may cost as 
 
THE PEOPLE 25 
 
 much as a couple of dark and damp basement 
 rooms, and, though that one room may mean 
 horrible overcrowding for a family of five or 
 six persons, it may nevertheless be a wiser and 
 healthier home than the two-roomed basement, 
 where the overcrowding would nominally be less. 
 As a matter of fact, owing to insufficient beds and 
 bedding, the whole family would probably sleep 
 in one of the two basement rooms, and therefore 
 the air space at night would be no more adequate 
 than in one room upstairs, while bronchitis and 
 rheumatism would be added to the dangers of 
 overcrowding. 
 
 The percentages given in the little table on 
 p. 26 are calculated approximately to the nearest 
 whole number below. 
 
 It is interesting to note that, while the death- 
 rate increases from nothing in the case of families 
 with only three children to 40 per cent, and over 
 in the case of families with ten or eleven children, 
 the intermediate percentages do not follow in 
 numerical order. Families with five children 
 have a worse death-rate than families with six, 
 seven, or eight. 
 
 In the same way, if you compare death-rates 
 according to household allowances, the death- 
 rate of families with between 205. and 22s. a 
 week is actually higher than that of families with 
 less than 2os. 
 
 When, however, the amount paid in rent is the 
 basis of the arrangement, the death-rate rises 
 
26 
 
 HOUSING 
 
 THIRTY-ONE FAMILIES WITH THREE OR MORE CHILDREN 
 TAKEN WITHIN THE INVESTIGATION. 
 
 Total of 186 children; 46 dead; death-rate, 24*7. 
 Arranged according to Number in Family. 
 
 Dumber born in 
 Each Family. 
 
 Number of 
 Families. 
 
 Number Dead. 
 
 Approximate 
 Death-rate. 
 
 
 
 
 Per Cent. 
 
 3 
 
 2 
 
 o 
 
 
 
 4 
 
 9 
 
 6 
 
 16 
 
 5 
 
 3 
 
 4 
 
 26 
 
 6 
 
 5 
 
 6 
 
 20 
 
 I 
 
 4 
 5 
 
 6 
 
 10 
 
 21 
 25 
 
 JO 
 
 2 
 
 8 
 
 40 
 
 II 
 
 I 
 
 6 
 
 54 
 
 Arranged according to Household Allowance. 
 
 Allowance. 
 
 Number 
 of 
 Families. 
 
 Number of 
 Children 
 born. 
 
 Number 
 Dead. 
 
 Approximate 
 Death-rate 
 
 Over 22 /o a week. . 
 
 II 
 
 73 
 
 PerCent. 
 II 15 
 
 20/0 to 22/0 
 
 9 
 
 59 
 
 19 32 
 
 Less than 20/0 
 
 II 
 
 54 
 
 16 29 
 
 Arranged according to Rent. 
 
 Rent. 
 
 Number 
 of 
 Families. 
 
 Number of 
 Children 
 born. 
 
 Number 
 Dead. 
 
 Approximate 
 Death-rate 
 
 Over 6/6 
 
 12 
 
 72 
 
 9 
 
 Per Cent. 
 12 
 
 6/0 to 6/6 
 
 7 
 
 39 
 
 7 
 
 17 
 
 Less than 6/0 
 
 12 
 
 75 
 
 30 
 
 4 
 
 (See Appendix A, p. 42.) 
 
HOUSING 27 
 
 from 12 per cent, to 40 per cent, as the rent 
 gets less. 
 
 It is hardly necessary to point out that the 
 death-rate is a rough-and-ready test, and not to 
 be considered as a close indication. If it were 
 practicable to use the general health of those 
 alive as well as the death-rate, it would be far 
 better. Also, of course, no one of the three 
 arrangements is independent of the other two. 
 Moreover, the numbers are few. The results of 
 the analysis, however, though proving nothing, 
 were considered interesting enough to encourage 
 the making of the same analysis of thirty-nine 
 cases of families with three or more children, taken 
 from the records of the weighing-room at Moffat's 
 Institute (see p. 28). The two lists were kept 
 separate, as the cases at Moffat's Institute had 
 been passed by no doctor, and hereditary disease 
 may be considered to be more rampant among 
 them. Added to this the wages are, on the whole, 
 lower than the wages of families within the limits 
 of the investigation. 
 
 It is curious that the death-rate in the second 
 table for families paying under 6s. rent is 
 much the same as it is in the first. The great 
 difference between the two tables lies in the far 
 larger death-rate in families paying over 6s. 
 rent shown in the second table, where disease 
 and insecurity and poverty were certainly greater 
 factors. 
 
 It is not pretended that the two tables do more 
 
28 
 
 HOUSING 
 
 THIRTY-NINE FAMILIES WITH THREE OR MORE CHILDREN 
 TAKEN FROM WITHOUT THE INVESTIGATION. 
 
 Total of 223 children; 70 dead; death-rate, 31*3. 
 Arranged according to Number in Family. 
 
 Number born in 
 Each Family. 
 
 Number ot 
 Families. 
 
 Number Dead. 
 
 Approximate 
 Death-rate. 
 
 3 
 
 7 
 
 2 
 
 Per Cent. 
 9 
 
 4 
 
 7 
 
 4 
 
 M 
 
 5 
 
 6 
 
 15 
 
 5 
 
 6 
 
 7 
 
 II 
 
 26 
 
 I 
 
 4 
 
 2 
 
 8 
 
 2 
 
 28 
 
 12 
 
 9 
 
 4 
 
 21 
 
 58 
 
 II 
 
 2 
 
 7 
 
 31 
 
 Arranged according to Household Allowance. 
 
 Allowance. 
 
 Number 
 of 
 Families. 
 
 Number of 
 Children 
 born. 
 
 Number 
 Dead. 
 
 Approximate 
 
 Death-raie. 
 
 Over 22/0 a week . . 
 
 8 
 
 60 
 
 2O 
 
 Per Cent. 
 33 
 
 2O/O tO 22/0 
 
 20 
 
 III 
 
 34 
 
 30 
 
 Less than 20/0 
 
 II 
 
 52 
 
 16 
 
 30 
 
 Arranged according to Rent. 
 
 Rent. 
 
 Number 
 of 
 Families. 
 
 Number of 
 Children 
 born. 
 
 Number 
 Dead. 
 
 Approximate 
 Death-rate. 
 
 Over 6/6 
 
 15 
 
 105 
 
 26 
 
 Per Cent. 
 2 4 
 
 6/0 to 6/6 
 
 J 4 
 
 7 1 
 
 26 
 
 36 
 
 Less than 6/0 
 
 10 
 
 47 
 
 18 
 
 38 
 
 (Sec Appendix B, p. 44.) 
 
HOUSING 29 
 
 than indicate that decent housing has as much 
 influence on children's health as, given a certain 
 minimum, the quality and quantity of their 
 food. That is to say, it is as important for a 
 young child to have light, air, warmth, and 
 freedom from damp, as it is for it to have sufficient 
 and proper food. 
 
 The kind of. dwelling to be had for 75. or 8s. 
 a week varies in several ways. If it be light, dry, 
 and free from bugs, if it be central in position, 
 and if it contain three rooms, it will be eagerly 
 sought for and hard to find. Such places exist 
 in some blocks of workmen's dwellings, and 
 applications for them are waiting long before a 
 vacancy occurs, provided, of course, that they 
 are in a convenient district. There are even sets 
 of three very small rooms at a rental of 55. 6d. in 
 one or two large buildings. These are few in 
 number, snapped up, and tend to go to the man 
 with not too large a family and in a recognised 
 and permanent position. 
 
 Perhaps the next best bargain after such rooms 
 in blocks of workmen's dwellings is a portion of a 
 small house. These small houses are let at rents 
 varying from los. to 155., according to size, 
 condition, and position. They are let to a tenant 
 who is responsible to the landlord for the whole 
 rent, and who sublets such rooms as she can do 
 without in order to get enough money for the 
 rent-collector. She is often a woman with five 
 or six children, who would not, on account of her 
 
30 HOUSING 
 
 large family, be an acceptable subtenant. If 
 
 she is a good woman of business, it is sometimes 
 
 possible for her to let her rooms advantageously, 
 
 and stand in herself at a low rental as rents go 
 
 in Lambeth. But there is always a serious risk 
 
 attached to the taking of a whole house the risk 
 
 of not being able to sublet, or, if there are tenants, 
 
 of being unable to make them pay. Many a 
 
 woman who nominally stands at a rent of 6s. or 
 
 6s. 6d. for the rooms which she keeps for her own 
 
 use is actually paying us. to 153. a week, or is 
 
 running into debt at the rate of 53. to los. a 
 
 week because of default on the part of her lodgers. 
 
 The ordinary housing for 8s. a week consists 
 
 generally of three rooms out of a four-roomed 
 
 house where the responsible tenant pays los. or 
 
 us. for the whole, and sublets one small room 
 
 for 2s. to 35., or of three or four rooms out of a 
 
 five- or six-roomed house where the whole rent 
 
 might be 145. or 155., and a couple of rooms 
 
 may be sublet at 6s. or 75. Some of the older 
 
 four-roomed houses are built on a terrible plan. 
 
 The passage from the front door runs along one 
 
 side of the house straight out at the back. Two 
 
 tiny rooms open off it, a front one and a back 
 
 one. Between these two rooms, at right angles 
 
 to the passage, ascends a steep flight of stairs. 
 
 Because of the narrowness of the house the stairs 
 
 have no landing at the top, but continue as stairs 
 
 until they meet the wall. Where the landing 
 
 should be, but is not, two doors leading into a 
 
HOUSING 31 
 
 front bedroom and a back stand opposite one 
 another, and open directly on to the steps them- 
 selves. Coming out of a bedroom with a child 
 in their arms, obscuring their own light from the 
 door behind them, many a man and woman in 
 Lambeth has trodden on the edge of a step and 
 fallen down the stairs to the ground below. There 
 is no hand-rail, nothing but the smooth wall on 
 each side. 
 
 Of the four little rooms contained in such a 
 house, perhaps not one will measure more than 
 12 feet the longer way, and there may be a copper 
 wedged into the tiny kitchen. A family of eight 
 persons using three rooms in a house of this kind 
 might let off the lower front room to an aunt or 
 a mother at a rent of 2s. 6d. a week, live in the 
 kitchen, and sleep in the two upstairs rooms. 
 The advantage of such a way of living is its 
 privacy. The single lodger, even if not a relative, 
 is less disturbing than would be another family 
 sharing another house. When the lodger is a 
 relative, a further advantage is that a child is 
 often taken into its grandmother's or aunt's room 
 at night, and the terrible overcrowding is relieved 
 just to that extent. 
 
 In some districts four rooms may be had for 
 8s. a week on the further side of Kennington 
 Park, for instance. Here the plan of the house 
 is more modern. The stairs face the front door, 
 have a hand-rail and any light which the passage 
 affords. The front room may be 12 feet square, 
 
32 HOUSING 
 
 and the kitchen, cut into by the stairs, 10 feet 
 square. There is a tiny scullery at the back, 
 which is of enormous value, as the 10 feet square 
 kitchen is the living-room of the family sure to 
 be a fairly large one or it would not take four 
 rooms. Upstairs are three rooms. Two at the 
 back will be very small, and the front one, 
 extending the whole breadth of the house, 
 perhaps 15 feet by 12 feet. A family of ten 
 persons, now living in a house like this, lets off 
 one of the small back bedrooms at a rental of 
 2s., and occupies the four remaining rooms at a 
 cost of 8s. a week. The copper belongs to the 
 woman renting the house, who makes what 
 arrangements she pleases with her lodger in 
 regard to its use. 
 
 There are four-roomed cottages in Lambeth 
 where there is no passage at all. The front door 
 opens into the front room. The room behind 
 opens out of the front room. The stairs lead out 
 of the room behind, and twist up so as to serve 
 two communicating rooms above. Here the 
 upstairs tenants are forced to pass through 
 both the rooms of the lower tenants every time 
 they enter or leave the house. The inconvenience 
 and annoyance of this is intense. Both ex- 
 asperated families live on the edge of bitter feud. 
 
 There are two-roomed cottages reached by 
 alley-ways, where both tiny rooms are below the 
 level of the pathetic garden at the door. Here 
 one sanitary convenience serves for two cottages. 
 
HOUSING 33 
 
 Here the death-rate would be high, but not so 
 high as the death-rate in the dismal basements. 
 
 Where two families share a six-roomed house, 
 the landlady of the two probably chooses the 
 ground-floor, with command over the yard and 
 washing arrangements. The upstairs people con- 
 tract with her for the use of the copper and yard 
 on one day of the week. The downstairs woman 
 hates having the upstairs woman washing in her 
 scullery, and the upstairs woman hates washing 
 there. Differences which result in " not speak- 
 ing " often begin over the copper. Three rooms 
 upstairs and three rooms downstairs would be 
 the rule in such a house, the downstairs woman 
 being answerable to the landlord for 133. a week, 
 and the upstairs woman paying her 6s. Each 
 woman scrubs the stairs in turn another fruitful 
 source of difficulty. Some of these houses are 
 frankly arranged for two families, although the 
 landlord only recognises one tenant. In such 
 cases, though there is but one copper, there will 
 be a stove in an upstairs room. In some houses 
 the upstairs people have to manage with an open 
 grate and a hob, and nearly all of them have to 
 carry water upstairs and carry it down again 
 when dirty. 
 
 On the whole, the healthiest accommodation 
 is usually to be found in well-managed large 
 blocks of workmen's dwellings. This may be as 
 dear as three rooms for 95., or it may be as cheap 
 as three very small rooms for 55. 6d. The great 
 
 3 
 
34 HOUSING 
 
 advantages are freedom from damp, freedom 
 from bugs, light and air on the upper floors, 
 water laid on, sometimes a yard where the 
 children can play, safe from the traffic of the 
 street. But there are disadvantages. The want 
 of privacy, which is very great in the cheaper 
 buildings, the tendency to take infection from 
 other families, the noise on the stairs, the inability 
 to keep a perambulator, are some of them. Then 
 there is no such thing as keeping the landlord 
 waiting. The rent must be paid or the tenant 
 must quit. The management of most buildings 
 exacts one or two weeks' rent in advance in order 
 to be on the safe side. A tenant thus has one 
 week up her sleeve, as it were, but gets notice 
 directly she enters on that week. In some 
 buildings the other people, kindly souls, will lend 
 the rent to a steady family in misfortune. A 
 carter's wife one of the cases in the investiga- 
 tion had her rent paid for ten weeks, while her 
 husband was out of work and bringing in odd 
 sums far below his usual wage, by the kindness of 
 the neighbours, who saw her through. She was 
 in good buildings, paying a low rent, and as she 
 said, " If I'd a-got out of this I'd never a-got in 
 agen." She paid off the money when her hus- 
 band was in work again at the rate of 33. 6d. 
 a week. 
 
 The three-quarters of a small house or the half 
 of a larger house are likely to be less healthy 
 than " buildings," because houses are less well- 
 
HOUSING 35 
 
 built, often damp, often infested with bugs which 
 defy the cleanest woman, have as a rule no water 
 above the ground-floor, and may have fearful 
 draughts and no proper fireplace. Their advan- 
 tages are the superior privacy and possibly 
 superior quiet, their accessibility from the street, 
 and, above all, the elasticity with regard to rent. 
 On the whole, the actual landlord is by no means 
 the monster he is popularly represented to be. 
 He will wait rather than change a good tenant. 
 He will make no fuss if the back rent is paid ever 
 so slowly. To many respectable folk, keeping 
 the home together on perhaps 223. a week, this 
 is an inestimable boon. It is wonderful how, 
 among these steady people, rent is made a first 
 charge on income, though naturally, given enough 
 pressure, rent must wait while such income as 
 there is goes to buy food. 
 
 Rents of less than 6s. a week are generally 
 danger-signals, unless the amount is for a single 
 room. Two rooms for 55. 6d. are likely to be 
 basement rooms or very small ground-floor rooms, 
 through one of which, perhaps, all the other 
 people in the house have to pass. One of two 
 such rooms visited for fifteen months measured 
 8 feet by 12 feet, had doors in three sides of it, 
 and was the only means of exit at the back of the 
 house. 
 
 Two sets of basement rooms at 53 6d. visited 
 during the investigation were extremely dark and 
 damp. In both cases the amount of coal burned 
 
36 HOUSING 
 
 was unusually large, as was also the amount of gas. 
 One of these basements was reached by stairs 
 from within the house, the other from a deep area 
 without. The former was warmer, but more air- 
 less, while the latter was impossible to warm in 
 any way. The airlessness of basement dwellings 
 is much enhanced by the police regulations, which 
 insist on shut windows at night on account of the 
 danger of burglary ! Both the women in these 
 two homes were languid and pale, and suffered 
 from anaemia. The first had lost three children 
 out of seven; the second, one out of four. 
 
 Four and six paid for two rooms meant two 
 tiny rooms below the level of the alley-way out- 
 side rooms which measured each about 12 feet 
 square. A family of six persons lived in them. 
 Four children were living, and five had died. 
 
 The question of vermin is a very pressing one 
 in all the small houses . No woman, however clean, 
 can cope with it . Before their confinements some 
 women go to the trouble of having the room they 
 are to lie in fumigated. In spite of such precau- 
 tions, bugs have dropped on to the pillow of the 
 sick woman before the visitor's eyes. One woman 
 complained that they dropped into her ears at 
 night. Another woman, when the visitor cheerily 
 alluded to the lovely weather, answered in a voice 
 of deepest gloom: " Lovely fer you, miss, but it 
 brings out the bugs somethink 'orrible." The 
 mothers accept the pest as part of their dreadful 
 lives, but they do not grow reconciled to it. Re- 
 
HOUSING 37 
 
 papering and fumigation are as far as any land- 
 lord goes in dealing with the difficulty, and it 
 hardly needs saying that the effects of such treat- 
 ment are temporary only. On suggesting dis- 
 temper rather than a new paper in a stuffy little 
 room, the visitor was met with the instant pro- 
 test: "But it wouldn't keep the bugs out a 
 minute." It would seem as though the burning 
 down of such properties were the only cure. 
 
 The fault is not entirely that either of the sani- 
 tary authorities or of the immediate landlords. 
 Nor is the blame to be given to the people living 
 in these houses. In spite of being absurdly 
 costly, they are too unhealthy for human habita- 
 tion. Sanitation has improved vastly in the last 
 dozen years, though there is still a great need for 
 more qualified, authoritative women sanitary in- 
 spectors. But no inspection and no subsequent 
 tinkering can make a fundamentally unhealthy 
 house a proper home for young children. The 
 sanitary standard is still deplorably low. That 
 is simply because it has to be low if some of these 
 houses are to be considered habitable at all, and 
 if others are to be inhabited by two, and often by 
 three, families at the same time. 
 
 The landlords might use a different system 
 with advantage to the great majority of their 
 tenants. To insist on letting a whole house to 
 tenants who are invariably unable to afford the 
 rent of it is to contract out of half the landlord's 
 risks, and to leave them on the shoulders of people 
 
38 HOUSING 
 
 far less able to bear them. A woman who can 
 barely stagger under a rent of 6s., 75., or 8s., 
 may at any moment find herself confronted with 
 a rent of los. 6d. or 155., because, in her desperate 
 desire to let at all, she is forced to accept an un- 
 satisfactory tenant. Turned into a landlord in 
 her own person, she is wonderfully long-suffering 
 and patient, but at the cost of the food of her 
 family. If ejectment has to be enforced, she, not 
 the real landlord, has to enforce it. She goes 
 through great stress rather than resort to it. 
 Houses intended for the use of more than one 
 family should, I consider, be definitely let off to 
 more than one family. Each tenant should deal 
 direct with the landlord. 
 
 The tenants might do more for themselves if 
 they understood and could use their rights if 
 they expected to be more comfortable than they 
 are. They put up with broken and defective 
 grates which burn twice the coal for half the heat ; 
 they accept plagues of rats or of vermin as acts 
 of God ; they deplore a stopped-up drain without 
 making an effective complaint, because they are 
 afraid of being told to find new quarters if they 
 make too much fuss. If they could or would 
 take concerted action, they could right a great 
 many of the smaller grievances. But, when all 
 is said and done, these reforms could do very 
 little as long as most of the present buildings exist 
 at all, or as long as a family of eight persons can 
 only afford two, or at most three, small rooms to 
 
HOUSING 39 
 
 live in. The rent is too dear; the houses are too 
 old or too badly built, or both; the streets are 
 too narrow; the rooms are too small; and there 
 are far too many people to sleep in them. 
 
 The question is often asked why the people 
 live where they do. Why do they not live in a 
 district where rents are cheaper, and spend more 
 on tram fares ? The reason is that these over- 
 burdened women have no knowledge, no enter- 
 prise, no time, and no cash, to enable them to 
 visit distant suburbs along the tram routes, even 
 if, in their opinion, the saving of money in rent 
 would be sufficient to pay the extra outlay on 
 tram fares. Moreover strange as it may seem 
 to those whose bi-weekly visit to Lambeth is like 
 a bi-weekly plunge into Hades the people to 
 whom Lambeth is home want to stay in Lambeth 
 They do not expect to be any better off elsewhere, 
 and meantime they are in surroundings they 
 know, and among people who know and respect 
 them. Probably they have relatives near by who 
 would not see them come to grief without making 
 great efforts to help them. Should the man go 
 into hospital or into the workhouse infirmary, 
 extraordinary kindness to the wife and children 
 will be shown by the most stand-off neighbours, 
 in order to keep the little household together 
 until he is well again. A family who have lived 
 for years in one street are recognised up and 
 down the length of that street as people to 
 be helped in time of trouble, These respectable 
 
40 HOUSING 
 
 but very poor people live over a morass of such 
 intolerable poverty that they unite instinctively 
 to save those known to them from falling into it. 
 A family which moves two miles away is com- 
 pletely lost to view. They never write, and there 
 is no time and no money for visiting. Neighbours 
 forget them. It was not mere personal liking 
 which united them; it was a kind of mutual re- 
 spect in the face of trouble. Even relatives cease 
 to be actively interested in their fate. A fish- 
 fryer lost his job in Lambeth owing to the business 
 being sold and the new owner bringing in his own 
 fryer. The man had been getting 265. a week, 
 and owed nothing. His wife's brothers and 
 parents, who lived near by, combined to feed 
 three of the four children; a certain amount of 
 coal was sent in; the rent was allowed to stand 
 over by a sympathetic landlady to whom the 
 woman had been kind in her confinement; and 
 at last, after nine weeks, the man got work at 
 Finsbury Park at 245. a week. Nearly 3 was 
 owing in rent, but otherwise there was no debt. 
 The family stayed on in the same rooms, paying 
 35. a week extra as back rent, and the man walked 
 daily from south of Kennington Park to Finsbury 
 Park and back. He started at five in the morn- 
 ing, arrived at eight, and worked till noon, when 
 he had four hours off and a meal. He was allowed 
 to lie down and sleep till 4 p.m. Then he worked 
 again till 10 p.m., afterwards walking home, arriv- 
 ing there at about one in the morning. A year of 
 
HOUSING 41 
 
 this life knocked him up, and he left his place at 
 Fins bury Park to find one in a fish- shop in West- 
 minster at a still slightly lower wage. The back 
 rent is long ago paid off, and the family, now with 
 five children, is still in the same rooms, though in 
 reduced circumstances. When questioned as to 
 why he had remained in Kennington instead of 
 moving after his work, the man pointed out that 
 the back rent would seem almost impossible to 
 pay off at a distance. Then there was no one 
 who knew them at Finsbury, where, should mis- 
 fortune overtake them again, instead of being 
 helped through a period of unemployment, they 
 would have nothing before them but the " house." 
 It is obvious that, in London at any rate, the 
 wretched housing, which is at the same time more 
 than they can afford, has as bad an influence 
 on the health of the poor as any other of their 
 miserable conditions. If poverty did not mean 
 wretched housing, it would be shorn of half its 
 dangers. The London poor are driven to pay 
 one-third of their income for dark, damp rooms 
 which are too small and too few in houses which 
 are ill-built and overcrowded. And above the 
 overcrowding of the house and of the room comes 
 the overcrowding of the bed equally the result 
 of poverty, and equally dangerous to health. 
 Even if the food which can be provided out of 
 22S. a week, after 75. or 8s. has been taken for 
 rent, were of first-rate quality and sufficient in 
 quantity, the night spent in such beds in such 
 
42 HOUSING 
 
 rooms in such houses would devitalise the chil- 
 dren. It would take away their appetites, and 
 render them more liable to any infection at home 
 or at school. Taken in conjunction with the 
 food they do get, it is no wonder that the health of 
 London school-children exercises the mind of the 
 medical officials of the London County Council. 
 
 APPENDIX A 
 
 LIST OF THIRTY-ONE FAMILIES, WITHIN THE 
 INVESTIGATION, FROM WHICH TABLE OF 
 COMPARISON IS COMPILED. 
 
 
 Allowance 
 to Wife. 
 
 Children 
 born. 
 
 Dead. 
 
 Rent. 
 
 Printer's warehouse- 
 
 20/O 
 
 4 
 
 O 
 
 8/0 
 
 man 
 
 
 
 
 
 Printer's labourer. . 
 
 28/0 
 
 8 
 
 o 
 
 8/0 
 
 Dustman 
 
 25/0 
 
 4 
 
 O 
 
 7/0 
 
 Policeman 
 
 27/0 
 
 8 
 
 I 
 
 8/6 
 
 Bus conductor 
 
 1 3/0 
 
 5 
 
 
 
 9/o 
 
 Coal carter 
 
 22/0 
 
 4 
 
 I 
 
 7/0 
 
 Plumber's mate . . 
 
 24/0 
 
 10 
 
 3 
 
 8/0 
 
 Horse-keeper 
 
 22/0 
 
 8 
 
 2 
 
 7/6 
 
 Printer's labourer 
 
 21/9 
 
 7 
 
 I 
 
 8/0 
 
 Railway - carriage 
 
 19/6 
 
 3 
 
 O 
 
 7/0 
 
 washer 
 
 
 
 
 
 Packer of pottery 
 
 23/0 
 
 6 
 
 o 
 
 7/3 
 
 Carman's trouncer 
 
 24/0 
 
 5 
 
 I 
 
 8/0 
 
 Horse-keeper 
 
 23/0 
 
 3 
 
 
 
 6/6 
 
 Plumber's labourer 
 
 1 8/0 
 
 6 
 
 3 
 
 6/6 
 
 Potter's labourer. . 
 
 20/0 
 
 4 
 
 o 
 
 6/0 
 
 Carter 
 
 19/0 
 
 4 
 
 I 
 
 6/0 
 
 Builder's handyman 
 
 22/6 
 
 7 
 
 I 
 
 6/6 
 
 Postal- van driver . . 
 
 23/0 
 
 8 
 
 I 
 
 6/6 
 
HOUSING 
 APPENDIX A Continued 
 
 43 
 
 
 Allowance 
 to Wife. 
 
 Children 
 born. 
 
 Dead. 
 
 Rent. 
 
 Labourer 
 
 22/6 
 
 7 
 
 I 
 
 6/0 
 
 Carter 
 
 15/0 to 
 
 6 
 
 I 
 
 5/0* 
 
 
 20/0 
 
 
 1 
 
 Pugilist 
 
 Very ir- 
 
 8 
 
 6 
 
 5/o 
 
 
 regular ; 
 
 
 
 
 
 average 
 
 
 
 
 
 below 
 
 
 
 
 
 20 /o 
 
 
 
 
 Builder's labourer 
 
 Irregular ; 
 
 6 
 
 I 
 
 3A> 
 
 
 average 
 
 
 
 
 
 below 
 
 
 
 
 
 2O/0 
 
 
 
 
 Fish-fryer 
 
 23/0 
 
 7 
 
 3 
 
 5/6 
 
 Carter for vestry 
 
 19/0 
 
 4 
 
 
 
 4/6* 
 
 contractor 
 
 
 
 
 
 Motor-car washer 
 
 Irregular; 
 
 4 
 
 i 
 
 3/3 
 
 
 below 
 
 
 
 
 
 20/0 
 
 
 
 
 Butcher's assistant 
 
 Irregular ; 
 
 4 
 
 i 
 
 5/6 
 
 
 below 
 
 
 
 
 
 2O/0 
 
 
 | 
 
 Scene-shifter 
 
 22/0 
 
 ii 
 
 6 
 
 5/o 
 
 Carman 
 
 Below 
 
 4 
 
 2 
 
 4/6 
 
 
 20/0 
 
 
 
 Carter 
 
 20/0 
 
 10 
 
 5 
 
 4/6 
 
 Feather-cleaner's 
 
 20/0 
 
 5 
 
 3 
 
 5/o 
 
 assistant 
 
 
 
 
 
 Borough Council 
 
 21/0 
 
 6 
 
 i 
 
 5/6 
 
 street-sweeper 
 
 
 
 
 
 * These rooms are in buildings, upstairs and sanitary. 
 
44 
 
 HOUSING 
 
 APPENDIX B 
 
 LIST OF THIRTY-NINE FAMILIES WITH THREE 
 OR MORE CHILDREN, OUTSIDE THE IN- 
 VESTIGATION, FROM WHICH TABLE OF 
 COMPARISON IS COMPILED 
 
 
 Allowance 
 to Wife. 
 
 Children 
 born. 
 
 Dead. 
 
 Rent. 
 
 Bricklayer's labourer 
 Music-seller's assist- 
 
 25/0 
 1 8/0 
 
 9 
 3 
 
 4 
 O 
 
 8/0 
 
 9/0 
 
 ant in West-End 
 
 
 
 
 
 shop 
 
 
 
 
 
 Carman . . . . 24/0 
 
 8 
 
 I 
 
 7/3 
 
 Postman . . . . 23/6 
 
 4 
 
 o 
 
 7/6 
 
 Baker's van-man . . 22/0 
 
 7 
 
 I 
 
 7/6 
 
 Stonemason 
 
 20/0 
 
 8 
 
 I . 
 
 8/0 
 
 Carman 
 
 2O/0 
 
 4 
 
 o 
 
 7/0 
 
 Sawmill labourer 
 
 20/0 
 
 5 
 
 I 
 
 6/0 
 
 Carman 
 
 22/0 
 
 4 
 
 I 
 
 6/6 
 
 House - decorator's 
 
 Irregular; 
 
 6 
 
 2 
 
 7/6 
 
 labourer 
 
 average 
 
 
 
 
 
 less than 
 
 
 
 
 
 20/0 
 
 
 
 
 Labourer 
 
 Less than 
 
 3 
 
 I 
 
 4/0 
 
 
 20/0 
 
 
 
 
 Painter's labourer 
 
 Less than 
 
 3 o 
 
 6/6 
 
 
 20/O 
 
 
 
 
 Builder's labourer 
 
 Less than 
 
 6 o 
 
 8/0 
 
 
 20/0 
 
 1 
 
 
 Carman 
 
 1 8/0 
 
 4 
 
 I 
 
 6/0 
 
 Waterside labourer 
 
 Less than 
 
 5 
 
 3 
 
 4/o 
 
 
 20/0 
 
 
 
 
HOUSING 
 APPENDIX B Continued 
 
 45 
 
 
 Allowance 
 to Wife. 
 
 Children 
 born. 
 
 Dead. 
 
 Rent. 
 
 Brass-foundry core- 
 
 24/0 
 
 3 
 
 I 
 
 6/6 
 
 maker 
 
 
 
 
 
 Labourer 
 
 22/O 
 
 4 
 
 I 
 
 6/0 
 
 Shop-assistant 
 Carman 
 
 20/0 
 2O/O 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
 4 
 
 6/0 
 
 6/6 
 
 Painter's labourer. . 
 
 20/0 
 
 7 
 
 3 
 
 7/6 
 
 Carman 
 
 20/0 
 
 3 
 
 
 
 4/6 
 
 Carman 
 
 1 8/6 
 
 7 
 
 3 
 
 4/0 
 
 Stone-grinder 
 
 20/0 
 
 3 
 
 
 
 5/6 
 
 Goods porter 
 
 25/0 
 
 5 
 
 2 
 
 7/0 
 
 Cleaner for L.G.B. 
 
 22/0 
 
 3 
 
 
 
 6/6 
 
 Carman 
 
 20/0 
 
 6 
 
 I 
 
 6/6 
 
 Stoker 
 
 24/0 
 
 II 
 
 3 
 
 8/0 
 
 Carman 
 
 22 /O 
 
 9 
 
 4 
 
 7/6 
 
 Potter's labourer . . 
 
 Less than 
 
 5 
 
 4 
 
 5/o 
 
 
 20/0 
 
 
 
 
 Labourer 
 
 Less than 
 
 4 
 
 o 
 
 4/0 
 
 
 20/0 
 
 
 
 
 Painter's labourer. . 
 
 21/0 
 
 5 
 
 2 
 
 6/0 
 
 Gas-worker 
 
 20/0 
 
 6 
 
 O 
 
 6/0 
 
 Blacksmith's la- 
 
 1 8/0 
 
 6 
 
 2 
 
 4/9 
 
 bourer 
 
 
 
 
 
 Carman 
 
 24/0 
 
 9 
 
 5 
 
 6/0 
 
 Labourer in timber- 
 
 20/0 
 
 5 
 
 3 
 
 5/6 
 
 yard 
 
 
 
 
 
 Carman for brewery 
 
 20/0 
 
 6 
 
 2 
 
 5/o 
 
 Tin-plate worker . . 
 Van-washer 
 
 24/0 
 
 20/0 
 
 II 
 9 
 
 i 
 
 8/0 
 6/0 
 
 Carman 
 
 2O/O 
 
 7 
 
 i 
 
 8/0 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 FURNITURE SLEEPING ACCOMMODATION EQUIP- 
 MENT FOR COOKING AND BATHING 
 
 IT is difficult to say whether more furniture or 
 less furniture would be the better plan in a home 
 consisting of three rooms. Supposing the family 
 to consist of eight persons, most people would be 
 inclined to prescribe four beds. As a matter of 
 fact, there will probably be two. In a double bed 
 in one room will sleep father, mother, baby, and 
 ex-baby, while in another bed in another room 
 will sleep the four elder children. Sometimes 
 the lodger granny will take a child into her bed, 
 or the lodger uncle will take a boy into his ; but 
 the four in a bed arrangement is common enough 
 to need attention. It must be remembered again 
 that these people are respectable, hard-working, 
 sober, and serious. They keep their jobs, and they 
 stay on in the same rooms. They are not slum 
 people. They pay their rent with wonderful 
 regularity, and are trusted by the landlord when 
 for any reason they are obliged to hold it back. 
 But, all the same, they have to sleep four in a bed, 
 and suffer the consequences. It is not an elastic 
 arrangement ; in case of illness it goes on just the 
 
 4 6 
 
SLEEPING ACCOMMODATION 47 
 
 same. When a child has a sore throat or a rash 
 it sleeps with the others as usual. By the time 
 a medical authority has pronounced the illness 
 to be diphtheria or scarlet fever, and the child is 
 taken away, perhaps another child is infected. 
 Measles and whooping-cough just go round the 
 bed as a matter of course. When a new baby is 
 born, the mother does not get her bed to herself. 
 There is nowhere for the others to go, so they 
 sleep in their accustomed places. This is not a 
 fact which obtrudes itself on the notice of a 
 visitor as a rule. She arrives to find the mother 
 and child alone in the bed, with the exception, 
 perhaps, of a two-year-old having its daily nap 
 at the foot. But in a case where there was but 
 one room, and where the man was a night- 
 worker, the visitor of the sick woman found him 
 asleep beside her. This discovery led to ques- 
 tions being put to the other women, who explained 
 at once that of course their husbands and children 
 sleep with them at night. Where else is there 
 for the unfortunate people to sleep ? Moreover, 
 the husband is probably needed to act as monthly 
 nurse at night for the first week. It is an arrange- 
 ment which does not allow of real rest for any of 
 them, but it has to be put up with. 
 
 The rooms are small, and herein lies the open- 
 window difficulty far more than in the ignorance 
 of the women. Poor people dread cold. Their 
 one idea in clothing their children is to keep them 
 warm. To this end they put on petticoat over 
 
48 SLEEPING ACCOMMODATION 
 
 ragged petticoat till the children are fettered by 
 the number of garments. It is not the best 
 method, but it is the best method they know of. 
 The best, of course, would be so to feed the chil- 
 dren that their bodies would generate enough 
 heat to keep them warm from within without 
 unnecessary clothing. A second-best method 
 might be to clothe the badly-nourished bodies 
 warmly and lightly from without. The best they 
 can do is to load the children with any kind of 
 clothing they can procure, be it light and warm 
 or cold and heavy. The best is too expensive; 
 the second-best is too expensive; and so they 
 have recourse to the third. It is all they can do 
 with the means at their disposal. So with sleep- 
 ing and fresh air. The best arrangement is a 
 large room, a bed to oneself, plenty of bedclothes, 
 and an open window. The second-best is a small 
 room, a bed for every two persons, plenty of bed- 
 clothes, and an open window. The only arrange- 
 ment actually possible is a tiny room, one bed for 
 four people, one blanket or two very thin ones, 
 with the bed close under the window. In wet 
 or very cold weather the four people in the 
 bed sleep with the window shut. What else 
 can they do ? Here are some cases each visited 
 for over a year during the investigation : 
 
 I. Man, wife, and three children; one room, 
 12 feet by 10 feet ; one bed, one banana-crate cot. 
 Man a night- worker. Wages varying from i6s. 
 to 2os. Bed, in which woman and two children 
 
SLEEPING ACCOMMODATION 49 
 
 slept all night, and man most of the day, with its 
 head half across the window; cot right under 
 the window. 
 
 2. Man, wife, and four children; one room, 
 12 feet by 14 feet; one bed, one cot, one banana- 
 crate cot. Wage from 195. to 22S. The bed and 
 small cot stood alongside the window; the other 
 cot stood across it. 
 
 3. Man, wife, and six children; four rooms; 
 two beds, one sofa, one banana-crate cot. Wage 
 22S. One double bed for four people in very 
 small room, crossing the window; cot in corner by 
 bed. One single bed for two people (girls aged 
 thirteen and ten years) in smaller room, 8 feet by 
 10 feet, with head under the window. One sofa 
 for boy aged eleven years in front downstairs room, 
 where police will not allow window to be open at 
 night. The kitchen, which is at the back, has the 
 copper in it, and is too small for a bed, or even a 
 sofa to stand anywhere. 
 
 4. Man, wife, and five children; two rooms; 
 one bed, one sofa, one perambulator. Wage 
 225. One bed for four persons across window in 
 tiny room; perambulator for baby by bed; one 
 sofa for two boys in kitchen, also tiny. 
 
 5. Man, wife, and four children; two basement 
 rooms; one bed, one baby's cot, one sofa. One 
 bed for four, with baby's cot by it, in one room; 
 sofa for child of nine in the other. In front room 
 the police will not allow the window open at night. 
 
 6. Man, wife, and five children; three small 
 
 4 
 
50 SLEEPING ACCOMMODATION 
 
 rooms upstairs; two beds, one cot; one double 
 bed for three persons, with head to window, cot 
 beside it, in one room ; one wide single bed for 
 three persons across window in other room. 
 
 7. Man, wife, and five children; two rooms 
 upstairs; one wide single bed, one narrow single 
 bed, one cot. Wife sleeps with two children in 
 wide single bed, baby in cot by her side. Two 
 children under window in tiny back room in 
 narrow single bed. The man works at night, and 
 gets home about four in the morning. He sits up 
 n a chair till six o'clock, when his wife gets up 
 and makes up the children's bed in the back room 
 for him. 
 
 There are plenty more of such cases. Those 
 above have been taken at random from an alpha- 
 betical list. In one a woman and five children 
 sleep in one room, but, as it is large enough to 
 have two windows, they can keep one open, and 
 are better off than many parties of four in smaller 
 rooms, where the bed perforce comes under the 
 only window. 
 
 It may be noticed that in some of the cases 
 given, as in some which I have no space to give, 
 a third or fourth room, which is generally the 
 living-room, has no one sleeping in it at night. 
 The women, when asked why they do not relieve 
 the pressure in the family bedroom by putting a 
 child or two in the kitchen, explain that they have 
 no more beds and no more bedclothes. Each 
 fresh bed needs blankets and mattress. They 
 
SLEEPING ACCOMMODATION 51 
 
 look round the tiny room, and ask, " Where'd I 
 put it if I 'ad it ?" Besides, to put a couple of 
 children to bed in the one living-room makes it 
 both a bad bedroom and a bad sitting-room, even 
 if the initial difficulty of bed and bedding could 
 be overcome. 
 
 It will be noticed, too, that in the list given a 
 cot of some sort was always provided for the 
 little baby. Unfortunately, this is not a universal 
 rule. It appears here because the investigation 
 insisted on the new baby having a cot to itself. 
 Otherwise it would have taken its chance in the 
 family bed. In winter the mothers find it very 
 difficult to believe that a new-born baby can be 
 warm enough in a cot of its own. And when one 
 looks at the cotton cot blankets, about 30 inches 
 long, which are all their wildest dreams aspire to, 
 one understands their disbelief. The cost of a 
 cot at its cheapest runs as follows : Banana-crate 
 with sacking bottom, is.; bag filled with chaff 
 for mattress, 2d.; blankets, is. 6d. bought whole- 
 sale and sold at cost price. This mounts up to 
 2S. 8d., and, for a woman who has to buy blankets 
 at an ordinary shop, a quality good enough for 
 the purpose would cost her more. She would have 
 to spend something like 33. 6d. over the child's 
 cot a sum which is beyond the reach of most 
 women with a 205. budget. As a rule it would 
 be safe to say that the new baby does take its 
 share of the risks of the family bed, legislation to 
 the contrary notwithstanding. 
 
52 FURNITURE 
 
 The rest of the furniture is both as insufficient 
 and crowded as is the sleeping accommodation. 
 There are not enough chairs, though too many 
 for the room. There is not enough table space, 
 though too much for the room. There is no 
 wardrobe accommodation other than the hook 
 behind the door, and possibly a chest of drawers, 
 which may partly act as a larder, and has in the 
 visitor's experience been used as a place in which 
 to put a dead child. 
 
 To take an actual case of a one-room tenement. 
 There are four children, all living. The man is 
 a dusky, friendly soul who usually addresses an 
 elderly visitor as " mate." On first making his 
 acquaintance, the visitor was so much struck by 
 the brilliance of his teeth shining from his grimy 
 face, that she ventured to express her admiration. 
 " Yes, mate, an' I tell yer why: 'cause I cleans 
 'em," he answered delightedly, and after a short 
 pause added, " once a week." On one occasion 
 the visitor, noticing that a slight pressure was 
 needed on a certain part of the baby's person, 
 looked for a penny in her purse, found none, but 
 was supplied by the interested father. The 
 penny was quickly stitched into a bandage, and 
 tied firmly over the required place. The next 
 week saw the family in dire need of a penny to 
 put in the gas-meter in order to save the dinner 
 from being uncooked. At the moment of crisis 
 a flash of genius inspired the father; the baby 
 was undressed, the penny disinterred, and the 
 
FURNITURE 53 
 
 dinner saved. The visitor, arriving in the middle 
 of the scene, could but accept the position, sacri- 
 fice a leaden weight which kept the tail of her 
 coat hanging as it should, and rebandage the baby. 
 The single room inhabited by this family is 
 large 15 feet by 13 feet and has two windows. 
 Under the window facing the door is the large 
 bed, in which sleep mother, father, and two chil- 
 dren. A perambulator by the bedside accommo- 
 dates the baby, and in the further corner is a 
 small cot for the remaining child. The second 
 window can be, and is, left partly open at night. 
 At the foot of the bed which crosses the window 
 is a small square table. Three wooden chairs 
 and a chest of drawers complete the furniture, 
 with the exception of a treadle machine pur- 
 chased by the mother before her marriage on the 
 time-payment system. The small fireplace has 
 no oven, and open shelves go up each side of it. 
 There are two saucepans, both burnt. There is 
 no larder. On the floor lies a loose piece of 
 linoleum, and over the fireplace is an overmantel 
 with brackets and a cracked looking-glass. On 
 the brackets are shells and ornaments. Tiny 
 home-made window-boxes with plants in them 
 decorate each window. The whole aspect of the 
 room is cheerful. It is not stuffy, because the 
 second window really is always open. The over- 
 mantel was saved for penny by penny before 
 marriage, and is much valued. It gives the room 
 an air, as its mistress proudly says. 
 
54 FURNITURE 
 
 Another family with eight children, all living, 
 rent four rooms two downstairs and two up. 
 Downstairs is a sitting-room 10 feet by 12 feet. 
 In it are a sofa, a table, four chairs, and the per- 
 ambulator. A kitchen 10 feet by 10 feet contains 
 a tiny table and six chairs. The cupboard beside 
 the stove has mice in it. A gas-stove stands in 
 the washhouse beside the copper. By it there 
 is room for a cupboard for food, but it is a very 
 hot cupboard in the summer. One bedroom with 
 two windows, upstairs, has a large bed away from 
 the window, in which sleep mother and three 
 children. The baby sleeps in a cot beside the 
 bed, and in a small cot under one window sleeps 
 a fifth child. One chair and a table complete the 
 furniture. In another bedroom, 10 feet by 8 feet, 
 sleep two children in a single bed by night, and 
 the father, who is a night-worker, and any child 
 taking its morning rest, by day. The remaining 
 child sleeps on the sofa downstairs, where the 
 window has to be shut at night. 
 
 Another family with six children rent three 
 rooms. The kitchen has the copper in it, and 
 measures 12 feet by 10 feet. A table of 4 feet by 
 2 feet under the window, three chairs, a mantel- 
 shelf, and a cupboard high up on the wall, com- 
 plete the furniture. Food can be kept in a per- 
 forated box next the dust-hole by the back door. 
 The room has a tiny recess under the stairs beside 
 the stove, where stands the perambulator in the 
 daytime, though it goes upstairs to form the 
 
WASHING ARRANGEMENTS 55 
 
 baby's bed at night. In one bedroom, 12 feet by 
 10 feet, is a big bed near the window, in which 
 sleep father, mother, and one child, with the 
 baby by the bedside. In another smaller room 
 sleep four children under the window, in one bed. 
 No other furniture. 
 
 It will be noticed that in none of the bedrooms 
 are any washing arrangements. The daily ablu- 
 tions, as a rule, are confined to face and hands 
 when each person comes downstairs, with the 
 exception of the little baby, who generally has 
 some sort of wash over every day. Once a week, 
 however, most of the children get a bath. In the 
 family of eight children mentioned above, the 
 baby has a daily bath in the washing-up basin. 
 On Friday evenings two boys and a girl under 
 five years of age are bathed, all in the same water, 
 in a washing-tub before the kitchen fire. On 
 Saturday nights two boys under eleven bathe 
 in one water, which is then changed, and two 
 girls of nine and twelve take their turn, the 
 mother also washing their hair. The mother 
 manages to bathe herself once a fortnight in the 
 daytime when the five elder children are at school, 
 and the father goes to public baths when he can 
 find time and afford twopence. 
 
 A woman with six children unacr thirteen 
 gives them all a bath with two waters between 
 them on Saturday morning in the washing- tub. 
 She generally has a bath herself on Sunday 
 evening when her husband is out. All the water 
 
56 WASHING ARRANGEMENTS 
 
 has to be carried upstairs, heated in her kettle, 
 and carried down again when dirty. Her husband 
 bathes, when he can afford twopence, at the public 
 baths. 
 
 In another family, where there are four children 
 in one room and only a very small washtub, the 
 children get a bath on Saturday or Sunday. The 
 mother manages to get hers when the two elder 
 children are at school. The father, who can 
 never afford a twopenny bath, gets a " wash- 
 down " sometimes after the children have gone 
 to sleep at night. " A bath it ain't, not f er grown- 
 up people," explained his wife; " it's just a bit at 
 a time like." Some families use the copper when 
 it is built in the kitchen or in a well-built scullery. 
 But it is more trouble to empty, and often belongs 
 to the other people's part of the house. All of 
 these bathing arrangements imply a great deal of 
 hard work for the mother of the family. Where 
 the rooms are upstairs and water is not laid on, 
 which is the case in a great many first-floor tene- 
 ments, the work is excessive. 
 
 The equipment for cooking is as unsatisfactory 
 as are the arrangements for sleeping or bathing. 
 One kettle, one frying-pan, and two saucepans, 
 both burnt, are often the complete outfit. The 
 woman with 22S. a week upon which to rear a 
 family may not be a professed cook and may not 
 understand food values she would probably be 
 a still more discouraged woman than she is if she 
 were and if she did but she knows the weak 
 
COOKING 57 
 
 points of her old saucepans, and the number of 
 pennies she can afford to spend on coal and gas, 
 and the amount of time she can allow herself in 
 which to do her cooking. She is forced to give 
 more weight to the consideration of possible time 
 and possible money than to the considerations of 
 excellence of cooking or extra food value. Also 
 she must cook for her husband food which he likes 
 rather than food which she may consider of 
 greater scientific value, which he may dislike. 
 
 The visitors in this investigation hoped to 
 carry with them a gospel of porridge to the hard- 
 worked mothers of families in Lambeth. The 
 women of Lambeth listened patiently, according 
 to their way, agreed to all that was said, and did 
 not begin to feed their families on porridge. 
 Being there to watch and note rather than to 
 teach and preach, the visitors waited to hear, 
 when and how they could, what the objection 
 was. It was not one reason, but many. Porridge 
 needs long cooking; if on the gas, that means 
 expense; if on an open fire, constant stirring and 
 watching just when the mother is most busy 
 getting the children up. Moreover, the fire is 
 often not lit before breakfast. It was pointed 
 out that porridge is a food which will keep when 
 made. It could be cooked when the children are 
 at school, and merely warmed up in the morning. 
 The women agreed again, but still no porridge. 
 It seemed, after further patient waiting on the 
 part of the visitors, that the husbands and chil- 
 
58 COOKING 
 
 dren could not abide porridge to use the expres- 
 sive language of the district, " they 'eaved at it." 
 Why ? Well cooked the day before, and eaten 
 with milk and sugar, all children liked porridge. 
 But the mothers held up their hands. Milk ! 
 Who could give milk or sugar either, for that 
 matter ? Of course, if you could give them milk 
 and sugar, no wonder ! They might eat it then, 
 even if it was a bit burnt. Porridge was an awful 
 thing to burn in old pots if you left it a minute ; 
 and if you set the pot flat on its bottom instead 
 of holding it all to one side to keep the burnt place 
 away from the flame, it would " ketch " at once. 
 An' then, if you'd happened to cook fish or " stoo " 
 in the pot for dinner, there was a kind of taste 
 come out in the porridge. It was more than they 
 could bear to see children who was 'ungry, mind 
 you, pushin' their food away or 'eavin' at it. So 
 it usually ended in a slice of " bread and marge " 
 all round, and a drink of tea, which was the break- 
 fast they were accustomed to. One woman 
 wound up a long and patient explanation of why 
 she did not give her husband porridge with: " An', 
 besides, my young man 'e say, Ef you gives me 
 that stinkin' mess, I'll throw it at yer." Those 
 were the reasons. It is true that to make por- 
 ridge a good pot which is not burnt, and which 
 is not used for " fish or stoo," is needed. It is 
 also true that to eat porridge with the best results 
 milk is needed. If neither of these necessaries 
 can be obtained, porridge is apt to be burnt or 
 
COOKING 59 
 
 half cooked, and is in either case very unpalat- 
 able. Children do not thrive on food they loathe, 
 and men who are starting for a hard day's work 
 refuse even to consider the question. What is 
 the mother to do ? Of course, she gives them 
 food they do like and can eat bread and mar- 
 garine or bread and jam, with a drop of hot weak 
 tea. The women are very fond of Quaker oats 
 when they can afford the luxury, and if milk is 
 provided to drink with it. They can cook a 
 little portion in a tin enamelled cup, and so escape 
 the family saucepan. 
 
 Another difficulty which dogs the path of the 
 Lambeth housekeeper is, either that there is no 
 oven or only a gas oven which requires a good 
 deal of gas, or that the stove oven needs much 
 fuel to heat it. Once a week, for the Sunday 
 dinner, the plunge is taken. Homes where there 
 is no oven send out to the bakehouse on that 
 occasion. The rest of the week is managed on 
 cold food, or the hard-worked saucepan and 
 frying-pan are brought into play. The certainty 
 of an economical stove or fireplace is out of the 
 reach of the poor. They are often obliged to use 
 old-fashioned and broken ranges and grates which 
 devour coal with as little benefit to the user as 
 possible. They are driven to cook by gas, which 
 ought to be an excellent way of cooking, but 
 under the penny-in-the-slot system it is a way 
 which tends to underdone food. 
 
 Table appointments are never sufficient. The 
 
60 CLEANING 
 
 children hardly sit down to any meal but dinner, 
 and even then they sometimes stand round the 
 table for lack of chairs. Some women have a 
 piece of oilcloth on the table ; some spread a news- 
 paper. So many plates are put round, each con- 
 taining a dinner. The eating takes no time at 
 all. A drink of water out of a tea-cup which is 
 filled for each child in turn finishes the repast. 
 
 Equipment for cleaning is one of the elastic 
 items in a budget. A Lambeth mother would 
 like to spend 5d. on soap, id. on soda, id. on blue 
 and starch. She is obliged in many cases to 
 compress the expenditure to 3d. or 5d. all told 
 She sometimes has to make 2d. do. There is the 
 remains of a broom sometimes. Generally there 
 is only a bucket and a cloth, which latter, probably, 
 is the quite hopelessly worn-out shirt or pinafore 
 of a member of the family. One woman heard of 
 soda which could be bought in The Walk for less 
 than the traditional 7 pounds for 3d., and, in 
 her great economy, supplied her house with this 
 inferior kind. She scrubbed and washed and 
 cleaned with it till her poor arms lost all their 
 skin, and she was taken into the workhouse in- 
 firmary with dangerous blood-poisoning. There 
 she stayed for many weeks, while sisters and 
 sisters-in-law took care of her children at a slight 
 charge for mere food, and the husband, who was 
 earning steady wages, looked after himself. He 
 said it was more expensive without her than with 
 her, and never rested till he got her home again. 
 
CLEANING 61 
 
 The cleaning of the house is mostly done in the 
 afternoons, when dinner is disposed of. Scrubbing, 
 grate-cleaning, bed-making, are attended to after 
 the return to school and to work of the children 
 and husband. The baby and ex-baby are persuaded 
 to sleep then, if possible, while the mother, with due 
 regard to economy of soap, cleans out her little 
 world. She has hardly finished before the children 
 are back for tea, and after tea the washing up. 
 
 Two pennyworth of soap may have to wash the 
 clothes, scrub the floors, and wash the people of 
 a family, for a week. It is difficult to realise the 
 soap famine in such a household. Soda, being 
 cheap, is made to do a great deal. It sometimes 
 appears in the children's weekly bath; it often 
 washes their hair. A woman who had been using 
 her one piece of soap to scrub the floor next 
 brought it into play when she bathed the baby, 
 with the unfortunate result of a long scratch on 
 the baby from a cinder in the soap. She sighed 
 when the visitor noticed the scratch, and said : " I 
 sometimes think I'd like a little oven best, but now 
 it do seem as if I'd rather 'ave two bits of soap." 
 The visitor helpfully suggested cutting the one 
 piece in two, but the mother shook her experienced 
 head, and said : " It wouldn't last not 'arf as long." 
 
 Clothing is, frankly, a mystery. In the budgets 
 of some women 6d. a week is set down opposite 
 the item " clothing club " or " calico club." 
 This seems meant to provide for underclothing 
 chiefly flannelette. One shilling is down, perhaps, 
 
62 CLOTHING 
 
 against " boot club." Other provision in the 
 most thrifty family there seems to be none. A 
 patient visitor may extract information, perhaps, 
 that the father gets overtime pay at Christmas, 
 and applies some of it to the children's clothes, 
 or that he is in a paying-out club which produces 
 anything from 135. to 26s., or thereabouts, at the 
 end of the year. But in the great number of cases 
 there is no extra money at Christmas, or at any 
 other time, to depend upon. In the poorer budgets 
 items for clothes appear at extraordinarily distant 
 intervals, when, it is to be supposed, they can no 
 longer be done without. " Boots mended " in 
 the weekly budget means less food for that week, 
 while any clothes which are bought seem to be 
 not only second-hand, but in many instances 
 fourth- or fifth-hand. In the course of fifteen 
 months' visiting, one family on 235. a week spent 
 3 5 s - 5id. on clothes for the mother and six 
 children. Half the sum was spent on boots, so 
 that the clothes other than boots of seven people 
 cost 325. Qd. in fifteen months an average of 
 45. 8d. a head. Another family spent gd. a week 
 on boots and Qd. a week on clothes in general. 
 There were four children. Some families, again, 
 only buy clothes when summer comes and less is 
 needed for fuel. The clubs to which extra careful 
 women, or women with more money for house- 
 keeping, subscribe, are generally run by a small 
 local tradesman. Whether they work for the 
 benefit of their clients, or whether, as seems far 
 
CLOTHING 63 
 
 more likely, they are run entirely in the interests 
 of the proprietors, has not been a subject of re- 
 search for the investigation. They fill a want. 
 That is evident. Women bringing up a family 
 on 2os. or even more a week need to have a 
 definite expenditure in order to know where they 
 are. They like to buy the same things week after 
 week, because then they can calculate to a nicety 
 how the money will last. They like to do their 
 saving in the same way. So much a week regu- 
 larly paid has a great attraction for them. If the 
 club will, in addition to small regular payments, 
 send someone to call for the amount, the transac- 
 tion leaves nothing to be desired. A woman who 
 can see her way towards the money by any possi- 
 bility agrees at once. Payment by instalment 
 fascinates the poor for the same reason. It is a 
 regular amount which they can understand and 
 grasp, and the awful risk, if misfortune occurs 
 of losing the precious article, together with such 
 payments as have already been made, does not 
 inflame their imaginations. If people living on 
 i a week had lively imaginations, their lives, and 
 perhaps the face of England, would be different. 
 
 Boots form by far the larger part of clothing 
 expenses in a family of poor children. Most 
 fathers in Lambeth can sole a little boot with some 
 sort of skill. One man, a printer's handyman, 
 spends some time every day over the boots of his 
 children. He is a steady, intelligent man, and 
 he says it takes him all his spare time. As soon 
 
64 CLOTHING 
 
 as he has gone round the family the first pair is 
 ready again. The women seldom get new clothes ; 
 boots they often are entirely without. The men 
 go to work and must be supplied, the children 
 must be decent at school, but the mother has no 
 need to appear in the light of day. If very badly 
 equipped, she can shop in the evening in The 
 Walk, and no one will notice under her jacket 
 and rather long skirt what she is wearing on her 
 feet. Most of them have a hat, a jacket, and a 
 " best " skirt, to wear in the street. In the house 
 a blouse and a patched skirt under a sacking 
 apron is the universal wear. Some of the women 
 miraculously manage to look clean and tidy; 
 some do not. The astonishing difference made 
 by a new pink blouse, becomingly-done hair, and 
 a well-made skirt, on one drab-looking woman 
 who seemed to be about forty was too startling 
 to forget. She suddenly looked thirty (her age 
 was twenty-six), and she had a complexion and 
 quite pretty hair features never noticed before. 
 These women who look to be in the dull middle 
 of middle age are young; it comes as a shock 
 when the mind grasps it. 
 
 In connection with clothing comes the vexed 
 question of flannelette. To a mother, they all use 
 it. It is warm, soft, and cheap. The skirts for 
 two children's petticoats can be bought for 4d. 
 the bodies, too, if the children are tiny and skill 
 is used. What else can the women buy that will 
 serve its purpose as well ? It is inflammable 
 
FURNITURE, ETC. 65 
 
 the mothers know that, but they hope to escape 
 accident and it is cheap enough to buy. Better, 
 they think, a garment of flannelette than no gar- 
 ment at all ! They would use material which is 
 not inflammable if there were any they could 
 afford which is as warm and soft and unshrinkable 
 as flannelette. The shops to which their calico 
 clubs belong stock flannelettes of all the most 
 cheap and useful and inflammable kinds . Flannel, 
 merino, cashmere, woollen material of any kind, 
 are dear in comparison. Enough unshrinkable 
 stuff to make a child a new warm, soft dress can 
 be bought for 6d. A woman with 6d. to spend 
 will buy that stuff rather than let her child go 
 without the dress. It is what we should all do 
 in her place. A child must be dressed. Give any 
 London magistrate 6d. a week on which to dress 
 four children; give him a great deal of cooking, 
 scrubbing, and housework, to do ; put a flannelette 
 shop round the corner : in exactly four weeks each 
 of those children would be clothed in flannelette. 
 The difficulty of keeping windows open at night ; 
 the impossibility with the best will in the world 
 of bathing children more than once a week; 
 the hasty and inadequate cooking in worn-out 
 and cheap utensils; the clumsy, hampering, and 
 ill-arranged clothing all these things, combined 
 with the housing conditions described in the pre- 
 vious chapter, show how difficult is the path of the 
 woman entrusted, on a few shillings a week, with 
 the health and lives of a number of future citizens. 
 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THRIFT 
 
 IT is just that a short chapter should be devoted 
 to the thrift of such a class of wage-earners and 
 their wives as are described here. It is a common 
 idea that there is no thrift among them. It 
 would be better for their childern if this were true. 
 As a matter of fact, sums varying from 6d. a week 
 to is. 6d., is. 8d., or even 2S., go out from incomes 
 which are so small that these sums represent, 
 perhaps, from 2j to 10 per cent, of the whole 
 household allowance. The object of this thrift 
 is, unfortunately, not of the slightest benefit to 
 the children of the families concerned. The 
 money is spent or saved or invested, whichever 
 is the proper term, on burial insurance. No 
 living child is better fed or better clothed because 
 its parents, decent folk, scrape up a penny a 
 week to pay the insurance collector on its ac- 
 count. Rather is it less well fed and less well 
 clothed to the extent of id. a week an appre- 
 ciable amount when it is, perhaps, one of eight 
 persons living on i a week. 
 
 One of the criticisms levelled at these respect- 
 able, hard-working, independent people is that 
 
 66 
 
THRIFT 67 
 
 they do like to squander money on funerals. It 
 is a view held by everyone who does not know 
 the real circumstances. It is also held by many 
 who do know them, but who confuse the fact 
 that poor people show a great interest in one 
 another's funerals with the erroneous idea that 
 they could bury their dead for half the amount 
 if they liked. Sometimes, in the case of adult 
 men, this may be so. When alive, the man, 
 perhaps, was a member of a society for burial 
 benefit, and at his death the club or society bury 
 him with much pomp and ceremony. In the 
 case of the young children of people living on 
 from i8s. to 305. a week, the parents do not 
 squander money on funerals which might be 
 undertaken for half the price. 
 
 A working man and his wife who have a family 
 are confronted with the problem of burial at once. 
 They are likely to lose one or more of their 
 children. The poorer they are, the more likely 
 are they to lose them. Shall they run the risk 
 of burial by the parish, or shall they take Time 
 by the forelock and insure each child as it is born, 
 at the rate of a penny a week ? If they decide 
 not to insure, and they lose a child, the question 
 resolves itself into one of borrowing the sum 
 necessary to pay the funeral expenses, or of 
 undergoing the disgrace of a pauper funeral. 
 The pauper funeral carries with it the pauperiza- 
 tion of the father of the child a humiliation 
 which adds disgrace to the natural grief of the 
 
 
68 THRIFT 
 
 parents. More than that, they declare that the 
 pauper funeral is wanting in dignity and in respect 
 to their dead. One woman expressed the feeling 
 of many more when she said she would as soon 
 have the dust-cart call for the body of her child 
 as that " there Black Mariar." This may be 
 sheer prejudice on the part of poor parents, but 
 it is a prejudice which richer parents even the 
 most educated and highly born of them if con- 
 fronted with the same problem when burying 
 their own children, would fully share. Refusing, 
 then, if uninsured, to accept the pauper burial, 
 with its consequent political and social degrada- 
 tion of a perfectly respectable family, the parents 
 try to borrow the money needed. Up and down 
 the street sums are collected in pence and six- 
 pences, until the price of a child's funeral on the 
 cheapest scale is secured. Funerals are not run 
 on credit; but the neighbours, who may be abso- 
 lute strangers, will contribute rather than suffer 
 the degradation to pauperism of one of them- 
 selves. For months afterwards the mother and 
 remaining children will eat less in order to pay 
 back the money borrowed. The father of the 
 family cannot eat less. He is already eating as 
 little as will enable him to earn the family wage. 
 To starve him would be bad economy. He must 
 fare as usual. The rest of the family can eat less 
 without bothering anybody and do. 
 
 What is the sum necessary to stand between a 
 working man and pauperdom should he suffer 
 
THRIFT 69 
 
 the loss of a child ? Inquiry among undertakers 
 in Lambeth and Kennington resulted in the dis- 
 covery that a very young baby could be buried 
 by one undertaker for i8s., and by a dozen others 
 for 2os. To this must be added the fee of los. 
 to the cemetery paid by the undertaker, which 
 brought his charges up to 28s. or 303. No firm 
 could be discovered who would do it for less. 
 When a child's body is too long to go under the 
 box-seat of the driver, the price of the funeral goes 
 up. A sort of age scale is roughly in action, 
 which makes a funeral of a child of three more 
 expensive than that of a child of six months 
 Thirty shillings, then, is the lowest sum to be 
 faced by the grieving parents. But how is a man 
 whose whole weekly income may be but two- 
 thirds of that amount to produce at sight 303. 
 or more ? Of course he cannot. Sheer dread of 
 the horrible problem drives his wife to pay out 
 iod., i id., or is., a week year after year money 
 which, as far as the welfare of the children them- 
 selves go, might as well be thrown into the sea. 
 
 A penny a week paid from birth just barely 
 pays the funeral expenses as the child grows older. 
 It does not completely pay them in early infancy. 
 Thirteen weekly pennies must be paid before any 
 benefit is due, and the first sum due is not suffi- 
 cient; but it is a help. As each child must be 
 insured separately, the money paid for the child 
 who does not die is no relief when a death occurs. 
 Insurance, whether State or other insurance, is 
 
70 THRIFT 
 
 always a gamble, and people on i a week cannot 
 afford a gamble. A peculiar hardship attaches 
 to burial insurance. A man may have paid 
 regularly for years, may fall out of work through 
 illness or other misfortune, and may lose all 
 benefit. When out of work his children are more 
 likely to die, and he may have to suffer the dis- 
 grace of a pauper funeral after five years or more 
 of regular payment for burial insurance. 
 
 Great numbers of premature confinements 
 occur among women who live the lives these wives 
 and mothers do. A premature confinement, if 
 the child breathes, means an uninsured funeral. 
 True, an undertaker will sometimes provide a 
 coffin which he slips into another funeral, evade 
 the cemetery fee, and only charge ios.; but even 
 los. is a terrible sum to produce at the moment. 
 Great is the anxiety on the part of the mother to 
 be able to prove that her child was stillborn. 
 
 The three-year-old daughter of a carter out of 
 work died of tuberculosis. The father, whose 
 policies had lapsed, borrowed the sum of 2 5s. 
 necessary to bury the child. The mother was four 
 months paying the debt off by reducing the food 
 of herself and of the five other children. The 
 funeral cortege consisted of one vehicle, in which 
 the little coffin went under the driver's seat. 
 The parents and a neighbour sat in the back part 
 of the vehicle. They saw the child buried in a 
 common grave with twelve other coffins of all 
 sizes. " We 'ad to keep a sharp eye out for Edie," 
 
THRIFT 71 
 
 they said ; " she were so little she were almost 
 'id." 
 
 The following is an account kept of the funeral 
 of a child of six months who died of infantile 
 cholera in the deadly month of August, 1911. 
 The parents had insured her for 2d. a week, being 
 unusually careful people. The sum received was 
 
 2. 
 
 Funeral 
 
 Death certificate 
 
 Gravediggers 
 
 Hearse attendants 
 
 Woman to lay her out 
 
 Insurance agent 
 
 Flowers 
 
 Black tie for father 
 
 I 
 
 s. 
 
 d. 
 
 I 
 
 12 
 
 o 
 
 
 
 I 
 
 3 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 
 
 I 
 
 
 
 
 
 O 
 
 6 
 
 o 
 
 I 
 
 
 
 2 I 9 
 
 The child was buried in a common grave with 
 three others. There is no display and no extrava- 
 gance in this list. The tips to the gravediggers, 
 hearse attendants, and insurance agent, were all 
 urgently applied for, though not in every case by 
 the person who received the money. The cost 
 of the child's illness had amounted to ios., 
 chiefly spent on special food. The survivors 
 lived on reduced rations for two weeks in order 
 to get square again. The father's wage was 243., 
 every penny of which he always handed over to his 
 wife. 
 
 The usual amount paid for burial insurance is 
 id. a week for each child, 2d. for the mother, and 
 3d. for the father, making nd. a week for a 
 
72 THRIFT 
 
 family with six children, though some over- 
 cautious women make the sum more. 
 
 Another form of thrift is some sort of paying- 
 out club. Usually payments of this kind come out 
 of the father's pocket-money, but a few instances 
 where the women made them came within the 
 experience of the investigators. One club was 
 named a " didly club." Its method seemed to 
 consist in each member paying a certain woman 
 Jd. the first week, d. the next week, f d. the next 
 week, and so on, always adding Jd. to the pre- 
 vious payment. The money was to be divided 
 at Christmas. It was a mere way of saving, as no 
 interest of any kind was to be paid. Needless to 
 relate, about October the woman to whom the 
 money had been paid disappeared. Stocking 
 clubs, crockery clubs, and Christmas dinner clubs, 
 make short appearances in the budgets. They 
 usually entail a weekly payment of 3d. or 4d., 
 and when the object the children's winter 
 stockings, the new plates, or the Christmas 
 dinner has been attained, the payments cease. 
 
 One form of money transaction which is 
 hardly regarded as justifiable when poor people 
 resort to it, but which at the same time is the 
 ordinary, laudable, business custom of rich men 
 namely, borrowing is carried on by the poor 
 under very distressing conditions . When no friend 
 or friends can be found to help at a crisis, many 
 a woman has been driven perhaps to pay the rent 
 to go to what she calls a lender. A few shillings 
 
THRIFT 73 
 
 are borrowed perhaps five or six. The terms 
 are a penny a week on every shilling borrowed, 
 with, it may be, a kind of tip of half a crown at 
 the end when all the principle and interest has 
 been paid off. A woman borrowing 6s. pays 6d. 
 a week in sheer interest that is, i 6s. a year 
 without reducing her debt a penny. She is pay- 
 ing 433 per cent, on her loan. She does not 
 know the law, and she could not afford to invoke 
 its aid if she did know it. She goes on being bled 
 because it is the local accepted rate of a " lender." 
 Only one of the women whose budgets appear 
 in these pages has had recourse to this kind 
 of borrowing, but the custom is well known by 
 them all. 
 
 Such is the passion for weekly regular pay- 
 ments among these women that, had the Post 
 Office initiated regular collection of pennies in- 
 stead of the industrial insurance companies doing 
 so, either the Post Office would now be in posses- 
 sion of the enormous accumulated capital of these 
 companies, or the people on 2os. a week would 
 have been much better off. The great bulk of 
 the pennies so urgently needed for other purposes, 
 and paid for burial insurance, is never returned in 
 any form whatsoever to the people who pay them. 
 The small proportion which does come to them is 
 swallowed up in a burial, and no one but the 
 undertaker is the better for it. As a form of 
 thrift which shall help the future, or be a standby 
 if misfortune should befall, burial insurance is a 
 
74 THRIFT 
 
 calamitous blunder. Yet the respectable poor 
 man is forced to resort to it unless he is to run 
 the risk of being made a pauper by any bereave- 
 ment which may happen to him. It is a terrible 
 object lesson in how not to manage. If the 
 sum of 11,000,000 a year stated to be paid in 
 weekly pennies by the poor to the industrial burial 
 insurance companies were to be spent on better 
 house room and better food if, in fact, the one 
 great universal thrift of the poor were not for 
 death, but were for life we should have a stronger 
 nation. The only real solution of this horrible 
 problem would seem to be the making of decent 
 burial a free and honourable public service. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 BUDGETS 
 
 PERHAPS it will be as well here to reiterate the 
 statement that these chapters are descriptive of 
 the lives and conditions of families where the 
 wage of the father is continuous, where he is a 
 sober, steady man in full work, earning from i8s. 
 to 305. a week, and allowing a regular definite 
 sum to his wife for all expenses other than his 
 own clothes, fares, and pocket-money. Experi- 
 ence shows how fatally easy it is for people to 
 label all poverty as the result of drink, extrava- 
 gance, or laziness. It is done every day in the 
 year by writers and speakers and preachers, as 
 well as by hundreds of well-meaning folk with 
 uneasy consciences. They see, or more often 
 hear of, people whose economy is different from 
 their own. Without trying to find out whether 
 their own ideas of economy are practicable for 
 the people in question, they dismiss their poverty 
 as " the result of extravagance " or drink. Then 
 they turn away with relief at the easy explana- 
 tion. Or they see or hear of something which 
 
 75 
 
76 BUDGETS 
 
 seems to them bad management. It may be, 
 not good management, but the only management 
 under the circumstances. But, as the circum- 
 stances are unknown, the description serves, and 
 middle-class minds, only too anxious to be set at 
 rest, are set at rest. Drink is an accusation 
 fatally easy to throw about. By suggesting it 
 you account for every difficulty, every sorrow. 
 A man who suffers from poverty is supposed to 
 drink. That he has i8s. or 2os. a week, and a 
 family to bring up upon that income, is not con- 
 sidered evidence of want. People who have 
 never spent less than 4 a week on themselves 
 alone will declare that a clever managing woman 
 can make i8s. or 2os. a week go as far as an 
 ordinary woman, not a good manager, will make 
 303. They argue as though the patent fact 
 that 3os. misspent may reduce its value to i8s. 
 could make i8s. a week enough to rear a family 
 upon. It is not necessary to invoke the agency 
 of drink to make 2os. a week too small a sum 
 for the maintenance of four, five, six, or more, 
 persons. That some men in possession of this 
 wage may drink does not make it a sufficient 
 wage for the families of men who do not 
 drink. 
 
 It is now possible to begin calculations as to 
 the expenditure of families of various sizes on a 
 given wage or household allowance. For a family 
 with six children the rent is likely to be 8s., 8s. 6d., 
 or even QS., for three or four rooms. A woman 
 
BUDGETS 
 
 77 
 
 with one or two children sometimes manages, by 
 becoming landlady, to make advantageous ar- 
 rangements with lodgers, and so reduce her pay- 
 ments, though not her risk, to considerably less 
 than the usual market price of one or two fairly 
 good rooms. But women with large families are 
 not able to do this. A family with four or five 
 children may manage in two rooms at a rental of 
 6s. to 73., while a family with one, two, three 
 or even occasionally four, children will take one 
 room, paying from 33. 6d. up to 53., according to 
 size. It is safe to assume that a man with a wife 
 and six children and a wage of 243. a week will 
 allow 223. for all outgoings other than his own 
 clothes and pocket-money, and that his wife will 
 pay for three, or perhaps four, rooms the sum of 
 8s. a week. 
 
 The budget may begin thus : 
 
 Rent (four rooms : two upstairs, two 
 
 down) 
 
 Clothing club 
 Boot club 
 Soap, soda, etc. 
 Burial insurance 
 
 s. d. 
 
 o 
 6 
 o 
 
 5 
 ii 
 
 The other regular items in such a woman's budget, 
 apart from food, would be heating and lighting, 
 comprising coal, wood, matches, gas or oil, and 
 candles. The irregular items include doctor's visits 
 to a sick child, which may cost 6d. a visit, or is. 
 a visit, including medicine, and renewals which 
 may be provided for by " crockery club, 4d.," or 
 
78 BUDGETS 
 
 may appear as "teapot, 6d.," or " jug, 3}d.," at 
 rare intervals. 
 
 Coal is another necessary for which the poor 
 pay a larger price than the well-to-do. The 
 Lambeth woman is compelled to buy her coal by 
 the hundredweight for two reasons, the chief of 
 which is that she is never in possession of a 
 sum of ready money sufficient to buy it by the 
 ton or by the half -ton. A few women, in their 
 passion for regular weekly payments, make an 
 arrangement with the coalman to leave i cwt. 
 of coal every week throughout the year, for 
 which they pay a settled price. In the summer 
 the coal, if they are lucky enough to have room 
 to keep it, accumulates. One such woman came 
 through the coal strike without paying anything 
 extra. She used only \ cwt. a week from the 
 coalman, and depended for the rest upon her 
 store. But not all have the power to do this, 
 because they have nowhere to keep their coal but 
 a box on the landing or a cupboard beside the 
 fireplace. They therefore pay in an ordinary 
 winter is. 6d. a cwt., except for any specially cold 
 spell, when they may pay is. yd. or is. 8d. for a 
 short time ; and in the summer they probably pay 
 8d. or 8Jd. for J cwt. a week. In districts of Lon- 
 don where the inhabitants are rich enough to buy 
 coal by the ton, the same quality as is used in 
 Lambeth can be bought in an ordinary winter 
 even now, when the price is higher than it used to 
 be for 22s. 6d. a ton, with occasional short rises to 
 
BUDGETS 
 
 79 
 
 235. 6d. in very cold weather. Householders who 
 have a large cellar space have been able to buy the 
 same quality of coal which the Lambeth people 
 burn, in truck loads, at the cheap time of year, at a 
 price of about 20S. a ton. The Lambeth woman 
 who buys by the hundredweight deems herself 
 lucky. Only those in regular work can always do 
 that. Some people, poorer still, are driven to buy 
 it by the 14 Ibs. in bags which they fetch home 
 themselves. For this they pay a higher propor- 
 tionate price still. While, therefore, it has been 
 in the power of the rich man to buy cheap coal 
 at i a ton, the poor man has paid 305. a ton in 
 winter, and almost 275. in summer a price for 
 which the rich man could and did get his best 
 quality silks tone. 
 
 Wood may cost 2d. a week, or in very parsi- 
 monious hands id. is made to do. Gas, by the 
 penny-in-the-slot system, is used rather more for 
 cooking than lighting. The expense in such a 
 family as that under consideration would be 
 about is. 
 
 The budget now may run : 
 
 Rent .. 
 Clothing club 
 Boot club 
 Burial insurance 
 Coal .. 
 Gas . . 
 Wood 
 Cleaning materials 
 
 s. d. 
 
 8 o 
 
 6 
 
 1 o 
 
 ii 
 
 1 6 
 I o 
 o i 
 o 5 
 
 13 5 
 
8o 
 
 BUDGETS 
 
 The whole amount of the household allowance 
 was supposed to be 22s. The amount left for 
 food therefore would be 8s. 7d. in a week when no 
 irregular and therefore extra expense, such as a 
 doctor's visit or a new teapot, is incurred. This 
 reasoned calculation of expenses other than food 
 has been built up from the actual personal know- 
 ledge of the visitors in the investigation from 
 the study of rent-books and of insurance-books, 
 from the sellers of coal, from the amount taken 
 by the gasman from the meter, from the amount 
 paid in clothing clubs and boot clubs, down to the 
 price of soap and soda and wood at the local shop. 
 It does not depend upon the budget or bona fides 
 of any one woman. It is therefore given in 
 order to show how closely it bears out budget 
 after budget of woman after woman now to be 
 given. 
 
 Mr. P., printer's labourer. Average wage 243. 
 Allows 2os. to 22S. Six children. 
 
 November 23, 1910, allowed 2os. 
 
 Rent 
 
 Burial insurance (2d. each child, 3d. 
 
 wife, 5d. husband ; unusually 
 
 heavy) 
 Boot club 
 Soap, soda, b ue 
 Wood 
 Gas .. 
 Coal 
 
 d. 
 
 12 
 
 Left for food .... 75. 
 
BUDGETS 
 
 81 
 
 November 30, allowed aos, 
 
 Rent 
 
 Burial insurance 
 
 Boot club 
 
 Soap, soda, blue, starch 
 
 Gas 
 
 Coal 
 
 Left for food . . 73. 3d. 
 December 7, allowed 2os. 
 
 Rent .. 
 
 Burial insurance 
 
 Coal .. 
 
 Boot club 
 
 Soap, soda> etc. 
 
 Wood 
 
 Gas . . 
 
 Hearthstone and blacklead 
 
 Blacking 
 
 Cotton and tapes 
 
 s. d. 
 
 8 o 
 
 i 8 
 
 i o 
 
 5 
 
 8 
 
 1 o 
 
 12 9 
 
 d. 
 o 
 8 
 6 
 o 
 5 
 3 
 o 
 i 
 i 
 
 3 
 
 Left for food . . 55. 9d. 
 
 A note in margin of this budget explains that 
 no meat was bought that week owing to a present 
 of a pair of rabbits. Meat generally cost 2s. 6d. 
 
 The next week Mr. P. was ill and earned only 193. 
 He allowed i8s. id. 
 
 Rent .. 
 
 Burial insurance (stood over) 
 
 Boot club 
 
 Coal .. 
 
 Liquorice-powder 
 
 Wood . . 
 
 Gas 
 
 Left for food 
 
 
 s. 
 
 d. 
 
 \ 
 
 8 
 
 o 
 
 ) 
 
 i 
 
 
 
 . 
 
 
 
 6 
 
 . 
 
 o 
 
 i 
 
 .. 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 . 
 
 
 
 9 
 
 
 10 
 
 6 
 
 7s. yd. 
 
 
 
 
 
 6 
 
82 
 
 BUDGETS 
 
 This family spent extraordinarily little upon 
 coal, and less than the usual amount on gas. 
 Their great extravagance was in burial insurance. 
 The extra penny on each child was not to bring a 
 larger payment at death, but to provide a small 
 sum at the age of fourteen with which to start 
 the child in life. A regular provision of 6d. for 
 other clothing than boots was made when the 
 household allowance rose to 2is. gd.on January 6, 
 1911. 
 
 Mr. B., printer's warehouseman, jobbing hand. 
 Average wage 235. Allows 20S. Four chil- 
 dren. 
 
 August 18, 1910, allowed 2os. 
 
 Rent .. 
 
 Burial insurance 
 
 Coal (regular sura paid all through 
 
 the year) . . 
 Oil and wood 
 Soap, soda, etc. 
 
 s. d. 
 8 o 
 i o 
 
 6 
 
 4* 
 
 5$ 
 
 ii 4 
 
 Left for food . . 8s. 8d. 
 August 25, work slack, allowed i8s. 
 
 Rent 
 
 Coal 
 
 Burial insurance (left over) 
 Oil and wood 
 Soap, soda, etc. 
 
 s. d. 
 8 o 
 i 6 
 
 10 4 
 
 Left for food 
 
 73. 8d. 
 
BUDGETS 83 
 
 September i, allowed 2os. 
 
 Rent 
 
 Burial insurance (partly back pay- 
 ment) 
 
 Coal 
 
 Soap and soda 
 Wood and oil 
 
 Left for food . . 
 September 8, allowed 2os. 
 
 Rent .. 
 
 Burial insurance 
 Coal 
 
 Doctor (sick child) 
 Soap, soda, etc. 
 Stamps 
 
 Oil and wood (extra light at night 
 for illness) 
 
 Left for food . . js. 4^d. 
 
 This family make no regular provision for 
 clothing of any kind. Overtime work solves the 
 problem partly, and throughout the year the 
 budgets show scattered items of clothing. 
 
 Mr. K., labourer. Wage 245. Allows 22s. 6d. 
 Six children. 
 
 March 23, 1911, allowed 22s. 6d. 
 
 Rent .. 
 
 Burial insurance 
 
 Oil and candles 
 
 Coal .. 
 
 Clothing club 
 
 Soap, soda 
 
 Blacking and blacklead 
 
 Left for food . . gs. gjd. 
 
 s. 
 
 d. 
 
 .. 8 
 
 
 
 ack pay- 
 
 
 . . i 
 
 6 
 
 I 
 
 6 
 
 . . o 
 
 4i 
 
 . . o 
 
 4! 
 
 ii 
 
 9 
 
 8s. 3d. 
 
 
 s. 
 
 d. 
 
 8 
 
 o 
 
 I 
 
 
 
 i 
 
 6 
 
 I 
 
 o 
 
 
 
 4i 
 
 
 
 3 
 
 at night 
 
 
 . . o 
 
 6 
 
 12 
 
 7* 
 
 
 
 s. d. 
 8 6 
 
 
 
 I 
 
 o 8 
 i 6 
 o 6 
 
 ead 
 
 
 o ?i 
 
 
 
 12 Si 
 
84 BUDGETS 
 
 March 30, allowed 22S. 6d. 
 
 Rent .. 
 
 Burial insurance 
 
 Oil and candles 
 
 Clothing club 
 
 Soap, soda, etc. 
 
 Coal 
 
 Wood.. 
 
 Left for food . . 93. 8d. 
 
 April 6, allowed 2 is. 
 
 Rent .. 
 Burial insurance 
 Coal .. 
 Clothing club (left o\> 
 Oil and candles 
 Soap, soda, etc. 
 
 er) 
 
 s. d. 
 
 8 6 
 
 i o 
 
 o 8 
 
 o 6 
 
 12 IO 
 
 s. d. 
 
 8 6 
 
 i o 
 
 i 6 
 
 o 8 
 
 o 5 
 
 12 
 
 Left for food 
 
 8s. nd. 
 
 No gas was laid on in the house. The item 
 for coal, therefore, is moderate, as most women pay 
 is. 6d. for i cwt. of coal a week in cold weather, 
 besides paying lod. or is. for gas. Boots are 
 paid for when required. A note against the 
 budget for April 13 says: " Sole old pram for 33, 
 it was to litle. Bourt boots for Siddy for 
 2S. njd. Made a apeny." 
 
 Mr. L., builder's handyman. Wage 235. 
 Allows 195. to 2os. Six children alive. 
 
 July 10, 1912, allowed 195. 6d. 
 
BUDGETS 
 
 s. d. 
 
 Rent (two upstairs rooms; lost one 
 child) 
 
 6 
 
 6 
 
 Burial insurance 
 
 i 
 
 
 
 cwt. of coal 
 
 
 
 8} 
 
 Wood 
 
 o 
 
 2 
 
 Gas 
 
 o 
 
 6 
 
 Soap, soda, etc. 
 
 
 
 4 
 
 Blacking 
 
 o 
 
 I 
 
 Boracic powder 
 
 o 
 
 I 
 
 
 9 
 
 4t 
 
 Left for food . . los. i|d. 
 
 
 
 July 17, allowed 195. 6d. 
 
 
 
 
 s. 
 
 d. 
 
 Rent .... 
 
 6 
 
 6 
 
 Burial insurance 
 
 I 
 
 
 
 cwt. of coal 
 
 
 
 8| 
 
 Gas .... 
 
 
 
 6 
 
 Wood .... 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 Soap, soda . . 
 
 o 
 
 4 
 
 
 9 
 
 2* 
 
 Left for food ... los. 3^d. 
 
 
 
 July 24, allowed 193. 
 
 
 
 
 s. 
 
 d. 
 
 Rent 
 
 6 
 
 6 
 
 Burial insurance 
 
 i 
 
 
 
 % cwt. of coal 
 
 o 
 
 gl 
 
 Wood 
 
 o 
 
 2 
 
 Gas 
 
 o 
 
 6 
 
 Soap, soda 
 
 
 
 4 
 
 Left for food 
 
 This family squeezes six children into two 
 rooms, thereby saving from is. 6d. to 2S. a week, 
 and makes no regular provision for clothing. 
 
86 
 
 BUDGETS 
 
 Clothes are partly paid for by extra money earned 
 by Mr. L. in summer, when work is good. 
 
 Mr. S., scene-shifter. Wage 243. Allows 22S. 
 Six children alive. 
 
 October 12, 1911, allowed 22S. 
 
 s. d. 
 
 Rent (two very bad rooms, ground- 
 floor; lost five children) 5 
 
 o 
 
 Burial insurance 
 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 cwt. of coal 
 
 
 o 
 
 8 
 
 Wood 
 
 
 o 
 
 2 
 
 Gas 
 
 
 o 
 
 6 
 
 Mr. T.'s bus fares 
 
 
 I 
 
 
 
 Newspaper . . 
 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 Soap, soda, etc. 
 
 
 
 
 5* 
 
 Boracic ointment 
 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 Gold-beater's skin 
 
 
 
 
 I 
 
 Collar 
 
 
 
 
 3 
 
 Pair of socks . . 
 
 
 
 
 4* 
 
 Boy's suit (made at home) 
 
 
 I 
 
 2 
 
 12 
 
 O 
 
 Left for food . . los. 
 
 
 October 19, allowed 22s. 
 
 
 s. 
 
 d. 
 
 Rent . . . . . . . . . * 
 
 o 
 
 Burial insurance 
 
 / 
 
 2 
 
 o 
 
 f cwt. of coal 
 Wood 
 
 I 
 
 o 
 
 o 
 
 2 
 
 Gas . . . 
 
 
 
 8 
 
 Soap, soda . 
 
 
 
 4 
 
 Bus fares 
 
 I 
 
 
 
 Newspaper . 
 
 o 
 
 2 
 
 Children's Band of Hope (tw 
 
 
 
 weeks) 
 
 o 
 
 6 
 
 Mending boots 
 
 
 
 6 
 
 Material for dress 
 
 
 
 4i 
 
 Cotton and tape 
 
 
 
 3 
 
 ii 
 
 "I 
 
 Left for food . . los. ojd. 
 
 
BUDGETS 
 October 26, allowed 22S. 
 
 8 7 
 
 s. 
 
 d. 
 
 Rent .. 
 
 
 
 5 
 
 
 
 Burial insurance 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 cwt. of coal 
 
 
 
 O 
 
 8 
 
 Wood 
 
 
 
 
 O 
 
 i 
 
 Gas .. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 3 
 
 Soap, soda 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 4l 
 
 Lamp oil 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 Matches 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 I 
 
 Bus fares 
 
 
 
 
 I 
 
 
 
 Newspaper 
 Children's Bai 
 
 id of t 
 
 ope 
 
 
 
 
 o 
 
 2 
 
 3 
 
 Mending boots 
 
 
 
 I 
 
 
 
 Print 
 
 
 
 o 
 
 6 
 
 Pair of stockings 
 
 
 
 
 
 44 
 
 Boy's coat (made at home) 
 
 o 
 
 9 
 
 12 8 
 
 Left for food 
 
 gs. 4d. 
 
 In this family there is no regular provision for 
 clothes, which are paid for as they must be bought. 
 No extra money is at any time of the year forth- 
 coming. Mr. S. clothes himself, but extracts 
 from his wife his newspaper as well as his fares. 
 The latter are usually paid by the men. The 
 mother is an excellent needlewoman, and makes 
 nearly all the children's clothes. She is also a 
 wonderful manager, and her two rooms are as 
 clean as a new pin. This had not prevented her 
 from losing five children when these particular 
 budgets were taken. She soon after lost a sixth. 
 The rent is far too low for healthy rooms . Though 
 she pays for the same number of rooms as Mrs. L., 
 she pays is. 6d. less a week for them, and they are 
 wretchedly inferior. Her burial insurance is 
 
88 BUDGETS 
 
 extremely high. Her record shows that she 
 thought herself wise to make the sum so liberal. 
 Even then she had to borrow los. to help to pay 
 the 303. for the funeral of her last child, because 
 the burial insurance money only amounted 
 tofi. 
 
 All the women, with the exception of Mrs. K., 
 are notable managers, and all but Mrs. K. and 
 Mrs. P. are extremely tidy and clean. Mrs. K., 
 who has five sons and a daughter, is more happy- 
 go-lucky than the others, as, fortunately for her, 
 her husband " can't abide ter see the 'ouse bein' 
 cleaned," and when it is clean " likes to mess it all 
 up agen." Mrs. K. doesn't go in for worryin' the 
 boys, either. Her eldest child is Louie, the only 
 girl, who is thirteen, and rather good at school, 
 but doesn't do much to help at home, as Mrs. K. 
 likes to see her happy. With all her casual ways, 
 Mrs. K. has a delicate mind, and flushes deeply 
 if the visitor alludes to anything which shocks 
 her. Louie's bed is shared by only one small 
 brother; Louie's clothes are tidy, though Mr. and 
 Mrs. K. seem to sleep among a herd of boys, and 
 Mrs. K.'s skirt looks as though rats had been at 
 it, and her blouse is never where it should be at 
 the waist. 
 
 Mrs. P. is under thirty, and, when she has time 
 to look it, rather pretty. Her eldest child is 
 only ten. The tightest economy reigns in that 
 little house, partly because Mr. P. is a careful 
 man and very delicate, and partly because Mrs. P. 
 
BUDGETS 89 
 
 is terrified of debt. It was she who discovered 
 the plan of buying seven cracked eggs for 3d. 
 As she said, it might lose you a little of the egg, 
 but you could smell it first, which was a conveni- 
 ence. She is clean, but untidy, very gentle in 
 her manner, and as easily shocked as Mrs. K. 
 Her mother rents one of her rooms, and, much 
 beloved, is always there to advise in an unscien- 
 tific, inarticulate, but soothing way when there is 
 a difficulty. The children are fair and delicate, 
 and are kept clean by their tired little mother, 
 who plaintively declared that she preferred boys 
 to girls, because you could cut their hair off and 
 keep their heads clean without trouble, and also 
 because their nether garments were less easily 
 torn. When in the visitor's presence the little 
 P.'s have swallowed a hasty dinner, which may 
 consist of a plateful of " stoo," or perhaps of 
 suet pudding and treacle, taken standing, they 
 never omit to close their eyes and say, " Thang 
 Gord fer me good dinner good afternoon, Mrs. 
 R." before they go. Mrs. P. would call them all 
 back if they did not say that. 
 
 Mrs. B. is a manager who could be roused at 
 any moment in the night and inform the inquirer 
 exactly what money she had in her purse, and 
 how many teaspoonfuls of tea were left, before she 
 properly opened her eyes. She likes to spend 
 exactly the same sum on exactly the same article, 
 and the same amount of it, every week. Her 
 menus are deplorably monotonous never a flight 
 
go BUDGETS 
 
 into jam, when the cheapest " marge " goes 
 farther ! Never an exciting sausage, but always 
 stew of " pieces " on Wednesday and stew 
 warmed up on Thursday. When bread goes up 
 it upsets her very much. It gives her quite a 
 headache trying to take the exact number of 
 farthings out of other items of expenditure with- 
 out upsetting her balance. She loved keeping 
 accounts. It was a scheme which fell in with the 
 bent of her mind, and, though she is no longer 
 visited, she is believed to keep rigorous accounts 
 still. She and all her family are delicate. Her 
 height is about 5 feet, and when the visitor 
 first saw her, and asked if Mr. B . were a big man, 
 she replied, " Very big, miss 'e's bigger than 
 me." She was gentle with children, and liked 
 to explain to a third person their constant and 
 mysterious symptoms. She dressed tidily, if 
 drably, and always wore a little grey tippet or a 
 man's cap on her head. 
 
 Mrs. L. is older and larger and more gaunt a 
 very silent woman. Mr. L. talks immensely, and 
 takes liberties with her which she does not seem 
 to notice. She is gentle and always tidy, always 
 clean, and very depressed in manner. When her 
 baby nearly died with double pneumonia, she sat 
 up night after night, nursed him and did all the 
 work of the house by day, but all she ever said on 
 the subject was, " I'd not like ter lose 'im now." 
 She looked more gaunt as the days went on, but 
 everything was done as usual. When the baby 
 
BUDGETS 91 
 
 recovered she made no sign. Before marriage 
 she had been a domestic servant in a West-End 
 club, receiving 145. a week and all found. Her 
 savings furnished the home and bought clothes 
 for some years. 
 
 Mrs. S. could tell you a little about Mr. S. if 
 you pressed her. He was a " good 'usbin'," but 
 not desirable on Saturday nights. She was a 
 worn, thin woman with a dull, slow face, but an 
 extraordinary knack of keeping things clean and 
 getting things cheap. All her bread was fetched 
 by her eldest boy of thirteen from the back door 
 of a big restaurant once a week. It lived in a 
 large bag hung on a nail behind the door, and 
 got very stale towards the end of the week ; but it 
 was good bread. She could get about 100 broken 
 rolls for is. gd. When she lost her children she 
 cried a very little, but went about much as usual, 
 saying, if spoken to on the subject, " I done all I 
 could. *E 'ad every think done fer 'im," which 
 was perfectly true as far as she was concerned, 
 and in so far as her means went. She loved her 
 family in a patient, suffering, loyal sort of way 
 which cannot have been very exhilarating for 
 them. 
 
 All of these women, with, perhaps, the excep- 
 tion of Mrs. K., seemed to have lost any spark of 
 humour or desire for different surroundings. The 
 same surroundings with a little more money, a 
 little more security, and a little less to do, was 
 about the best their imaginations could grasp. 
 
92 BUDGETS 
 
 They knew nothing of any other way of living if 
 you were married. Mrs. K. liked being read to. 
 Her husband, hearing that she had had " Little 
 Lord Fauntleroy " read aloud to her at her 
 mothers' meeting, took her to the gallery of a 
 theatre, where she saw acted some version, or 
 what she took for some version, of this story. It 
 roused her imagination in a way which was 
 astonishing. She questioned, she believed, she 
 accepted. There were people like that ! How 
 real and how thrilling ! It seemed to take some- 
 thing of the burden of the five boys and the girl 
 from her shoulders . Did the visitor think theatres 
 wrong ? No, the visitor liked theatres. Well, 
 Mrs. K. would like to go again if it could possibly 
 be afforded, but of course it could not. At the 
 mothers' meeting they were now having a book 
 read to them called " Dom Quick Sotty." It was 
 interesting, but not so interesting as " Little Lord 
 Fauntleroy," though, of course, that would be 
 Mrs. K.'s own fault most probably. Mrs. K.'s 
 criticism on " Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch," 
 later, was that it was a book about a queer sort of 
 people. 
 
 The children of these five families were, on the 
 whole, well brought up as regards manners and 
 cleanliness and behaviour. All of them were 
 kindly and patiently treated by their mothers. 
 Mrs. P., who was only twenty-eight, was a little 
 plaintive with her brood of six. Mrs. K., as has 
 been explained, was unruffled and placid. The 
 
BUDGETS 93 
 
 other three were punctual, clean, and gentle, if a 
 trifle depressing. Want of the joy of life was the 
 most salient feature of the children as they grew 
 older. They too readily accepted limitations and 
 qualifications imposed upon them, without that 
 irrational hoping against impossibility and belief 
 in favourable miracles which carry more fortunate 
 children through many disappointments. These 
 children never rebel against disappointment. It 
 is their lot. They more or less expect it. The 
 children of Mrs. K. were the most vital and noisy 
 and troublesome, and those of Mrs. B. the most 
 obedient and quiet, and what the women them- 
 selves called " old-fashioned." All the children 
 were nice creatures, and not one of them was a 
 " first-class life " or gave promise of health and 
 strength. 
 
 NOTE. In dissecting budgets in this and following 
 chapters the writer has not reckoned in the extra 
 nourishment which was provided for mother and child. 
 It is obvious that general calculations based upon such 
 temporary and unusual assistance would be misleading 
 with regard to the whole class of low-paid labour: 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 FOOD! CHIEF ARTICLES OF DIET 
 
 WE now come to food. Two questions, besides 
 that of the amount of money to be spent, bear 
 upon food. What are the chief articles of diet ? 
 Where are they bought ? Without doubt, the 
 chief article of diet in a 2os. budget is bread. A 
 long way after bread come potatoes, meat, and 
 fish. Bread is bought from one of the abundance 
 of bakers in the neighbourhood, and is not as a 
 rule very different in price and quality from bread 
 in other parts of London. Meat is generally bar- 
 gained for on street stalls on Saturday night or 
 even Sunday morning. It may be cheaper than 
 meat purchased in the West End, but is as cer- 
 tainly worse in original quality as well as less fresh 
 and less clean in condition. Potatoes are gener- 
 ally 2 Ibs. for id., unless they are " new " potatoes. 
 Then they are dearer. When, at certain seasons 
 in the year, they are " old " potatoes, they are 
 cheaper; but then they do not "cut up" well, 
 owing to the sprouting eyes. They are usually 
 bought from an itinerant barrow. Bread in 
 Lambeth is bought in the shop, because the baker 
 is bound, when selling over the counter, to give 
 
 94 
 
FOOD : CHIEF ARTICLES OF DIET 95 
 
 legal weight. In other words, when he is paid for 
 a quartern he must sell a quartern. He therefore 
 weighs two " half -quart ern " loaves, and makes 
 up with pieces of bread cut from loaves he keeps 
 by him for the purpose until the weight is correct. 
 In different districts bakers sell a quartern for 
 slightly different prices. The price at one mo- 
 ment south of Kennington Park may be 5d., 
 while up in Lambeth proper it may be 5d. In 
 Kensington at the same moment delivered bread 
 is perhaps being sold at 6d. a quartern. The differ- 
 ence in price, therefore, at a given moment might 
 amount to as much as yd. a week in the case of a 
 large family, and 3d. in the case of a small family. 
 When a weekly income is decreased for any 
 cause, the one item of food which seldom varies 
 or at any rate is the last to vary is bread. 
 Meat is affected at once. Meat may sink from 
 45. a week to 6d. owing to a fluctuation in income- 
 But the amount of bread bought when the full 
 allowance was paid is, if possible, still bought 
 when meat may have almost decreased to nothing. 
 The amount of bread eaten in an ordinary 
 middle-class, well-to-do, but economically man- 
 aged household of thirteen persons is 18 quarterns, 
 or 36 loaves, a week something not far short of 
 3 loaves a head a week. This takes no heed of 
 innumerable cakes and sweet puddings consumed 
 by these thirteen persons, who at the same time 
 are consuming an ample supply of meat, fish, 
 bacon, fruit, vegetables, butter, and milk. 
 
9 6 FOOD : CHIEF ARTICLES OF DIET 
 
 In Lambeth, the amounts spent on bread and 
 meat respectively by the wives of four men in 
 regular work are given below: 
 
 Mrs. D.: Allowance, 283.; ten persons to feed; 
 
 io quartern at 5^d.; meat, 43. 2d. 
 Mrs. C. : Allowance, 2is.; eight persons to feed; 
 
 8 quartern at 5^d.; meat, 33. 2^d. 
 Mrs. J.: Allowance, 228.; five persons to feed; 
 
 7 quartern at 5^d.; meat, 2S. nd. 
 Mrs. G. : Allowance, 193. 6d.; five persons to feed; 
 
 5! quartern at 5jd.; meat, 2S. 2d. 
 
 It will be seen that a quartern a head a week is 
 the least amount taken in these four cases. On 
 the whole, it would be a fairly correct calculation 
 to allow this quantity as the amount aimed at as 
 a minimum in most lower working-class families. 
 The sum spent on meat may perhaps be greater 
 than the sum spent on bread. But meat goes by 
 the board before bread is seriously diminished, 
 should the income suffer. This the three cases 
 given here will show: 
 
 Mrs. W.: Allowance, 233.; eight persons to feed; 
 
 9 1 quartern; meat, 33. g$d. 
 Allowance reduced to 173.; eight persons to feed ; 
 
 8 quartern; meat, is. 6d. 
 Allowance reduced to zos. (rent unpaid); eight 
 
 persons to feed; 6 quartern; meat, 6d. 
 
 Mrs. S.: Allowance, 2is.; eight persons to feed; 
 
 7 quartern ; meat, 23. 6d. 
 Allowance reduced to i8s.; eight persons to feed; 
 
 7 quartern; meat, is. 2d. 
 
 Mrs. M. : Allowance, 203.; six persons to feed; 
 
 7 quartern; mea,t, as. lod. 
 Allowance reduced to i8s.; six persons to feed; 
 
 7 quartern; meat, as. 
 
FOOD : CHIEF ARTICLES OF DIET 97 
 
 It is difficult to arrive at the quantity of 
 meat, as it is often bargained for and sold by the 
 piece without weighing. The experienced house- 
 wife offers so much, while the ticket on the meat is 
 offering it for so much more. A compromise is 
 arrived at and the commodity changes hands. 
 "Pieces" are sold by weight, but are of various 
 qualities and prices. Good " pieces " may be 6d. 
 per lb., fair " pieces " are sold for 4^d., which is 
 the most common price paid for them, but inferior 
 '* pieces " can be had for 3d. on occasions. They 
 are usually gristle and sinew at that price. 
 
 Meat is bought for the men, and the chief ex- 
 penditure is made in preparation for Sunday's 
 dinner, when the man is at home. It is eaten 
 cold by him the next day. The children get a 
 pound of pieces stewed for them during the week, 
 and with plenty of potatoes they make great show 
 with the gravy. 
 
 Bread, however, is their chief food. It is 
 cheap; they like it; it comes into the house ready 
 cooked ; it is always at hand, and needs no plate 
 and spoon. Spread with a scraping of butter, 
 jam, or margarine, according to the length of 
 purse of the mother, they never tire of it as long 
 as they are in their ordinary state of health. 
 They receive it into their hands, and can please 
 themselves as to where and how they eat it. It 
 makes the sole article in the menu for two meals 
 in the day. Dinner may consist of anything, 
 from the joint on Sunday to boiled rice on 
 
 7 
 
98 FOOD : CHIEF ARTICLES OF DIET 
 
 Friday. Potatoes will play a great part, as a rule, 
 at dinner, but breakfast and tea will be bread. 
 
 Potatoes are not an expensive item in the 2os. 
 budget. They may cost is. 3d. a week in a family 
 of ten persons, and 4d. a week in a family of three. 
 But they are an invariable item. Greens may go, 
 butter may go, meat may diminish almost to the 
 vanishing-point, before potatoes are affected. 
 When potatoes do not appear for dinner, their 
 place will be taken by suet pudding, which will 
 mean that there is no gravy or dripping to eat 
 with them. Treacle, or as the shop round the 
 corner calls it " golden syrup," will probably 
 be eaten with the pudding, and the two together 
 will form a midday meal for the mother and 
 children in a working man's family. All these 
 are good bread, potatoes, suet pudding; but 
 children need other food as well. 
 
 First and foremost children need milk. All 
 children need milk, not only infants in arms. 
 When a mother weans her child, she ought to be 
 able to give it plenty of milk or food made with 
 milk. The writer well remembers a course of 
 eloquent and striking lectures delivered by an 
 able medical man to an audience of West-End 
 charitable ladies. He ended his course by telling 
 his audience that, if they wished to do good to the 
 children of the poor, they would do more towards 
 effecting their purpose if they were to walk 
 through East End streets with placards bearing 
 the legend " MILK is the proper food for infants," 
 
FOOD : CHIEF ARTICLES OF DIET 99 
 
 than by taking any other action he could think 
 of. His audience was deeply interested and 
 utterly believing. The fact that the children of 
 the poor never taste milk once they cease to be 
 nursed by their mothers was well known to the 
 lecturer through his hospital experience, and 
 hence his earnest appeal to have the mothers of 
 those children taught what was the proper food 
 to give them. He was, however, wrong in his idea 
 that poor women do not realize that milk is the 
 proper food for infants. The reason why the 
 infants do not get milk is the reason why they do 
 not get good housing or comfortable clothing it 
 is too expensive. Milk costs the same, 4d. a 
 quart, in Lambeth that it costs in Mayfair. A 
 healthy child ought to be able to use a quart of 
 milk a day, which means a weekly milk bill for 
 that child of 2s. 4d. quite an impossible amount 
 when the food of the whole family may have to 
 be supplied out of 8s. or 93. a week. Even a 
 pint a day means is. 2d. a week, so that is out 
 of the question, though a pint a day would not 
 suffice for a child of a year old, who would need 
 his or her full share of potatoes and gravy and 
 bread as well. As it is, the only milk the children 
 of the labourer get is the separated tinned milk, 
 sold in id., 2d., 3d., and 4d. tins, according to 
 size. These tins bear upon them in large red 
 letters the legend, " This milk is not recommended 
 as food for infants." The children do not get 
 too much even of such milk. Families of ten 
 
ioo FOOD : CHIEF ARTICLES OF DIET 
 
 persons would take two tins at 3^d. in the week. 
 Families of five, six, or seven, would probably 
 take one such tin. It is used to put in tea, which, 
 as it is extremely sweet, it furnishes with sugar as 
 well as with milk. Sometimes it is spread on the 
 breakfast slice of bread instead of butter or jam. 
 An inexperienced visitor probably suggests that 
 it would make a good milk pudding, but is silenced 
 by hearing that it would take half a tin to make 
 one pudding, and then there is no richness in it. 
 Some people have suggested skim milk as a way 
 round this very terrible deprivation of the hard- 
 working poor. But skim milk does not take the 
 place of whole milk as a food for infants . Parents 
 who are comfortably off would never dream of 
 starving their infants upon it. Even supposing 
 that the children of the poor could magically 
 flourish upon skim milk alone, there is not enough 
 of it on the market to allow its use to be regarded 
 as a universal panacea for hungry babies. In 
 fact, it is worth a moment's speculation as to 
 whether the whole milk-supply of England is 
 sufficient to insure a quart a day to each English 
 child under five years of age. It is more than 
 likely that, unless the milk-supply were enor- 
 mously increased, adults would have to go entirely 
 without milk should the nation suddenly awake 
 to its duty towards its children. 
 
 The purpose of this book is not to inquire as to 
 whether this mother or that mother might not do 
 a little better than she does if she bought some 
 
FOOD: CHIEF ARTICLES OF 'DIET 101 
 
 skim milk, or trained her children to enjoy burned 
 porridge. It is to inquire whether, under the 
 same conditions and with the same means at their 
 command, any body of men or women could 
 efficiently and sufficiently lodge and feed the same 
 number of children. 
 
 A boys' home which maintains some thirty 
 children between the ages of six and fifteen feeds, 
 clothes, and lodges, each boy on an average of 
 6s. a week. This does not sound an extravagant 
 sum. It is the outcome of much study, great 
 knowledge of the subject, and untiring zeal. 
 The working man's wife whose husband out of 
 a 22S. or 233. wage allows her 2os., and who has 
 that convenient family of three children which 
 is permitted by experts on the subject to be a 
 becoming number in a working-class family, has 
 only 43. a head on which to feed, lodge, and 
 clothe, the family. 
 
 Milk depots have been in existence in Lambeth 
 for some years, and have undoubtedly done 
 splendid service to babies under one year of age 
 whose mothers cannot nurse them, but can afford 
 to pay the growing amount of gd. to 35. a week 
 for their children. The milk has to be called for, 
 which limits the area in which it can be supplied ; 
 but it is sent out in sealed vessels, and is mixed in 
 the exact proportions suitable to the age of the 
 infant. So, when it can be afforded, its results 
 are excellent. Unfortunately, the nursing mother 
 is not helped by this, and it is she who requires 
 
102 FOOD : CHIEF ARTICLES OF DIET 
 
 milk for the needs of the baby she is nursing. 
 Moreover, the price is, in the case of the 2os. 
 budget, quite out of the question should the 
 children number more than one, or at the most two. 
 
 As things are, once weaned, the child of a 
 labouring man gets its share of the family diet. 
 It gets its share of the 4d. tin of separated milk, 
 its share of gravy and potatoes, a sip of the cocoa 
 on which 3d. or 4d. a week may be spent for the 
 use of everyone, and, if its father be particularly 
 partial to it, a mouthful of fat bacon once or 
 twice a week, spared from the not too generous 
 " relish to his tea." Besides these extras it gets 
 bread. 
 
 Women in the poorer working-class districts 
 nurse their babies, as a rule, far longer than they 
 should. It is not unusual for a mother to say 
 that she always nurses until they are a year old. 
 In many cases where a better-off mother would 
 recognize that she is unable to satisfy her child's 
 hunger, and would wean it at once, the poor 
 mother goes hopelessly on because it is cheaper to 
 nurse. It is less trouble to nurse, and it is held 
 among them to be a safeguard against pregnancy. 
 For those three reasons it is difficult to persuade 
 a Lambeth woman to wean her child. In most of 
 these cases milk or palatable food supplied to the 
 mother would save the situation, and contrive a 
 double debt to pay the welfare of both mother 
 and child. But the mother, who is by nature a 
 poor nurse, usually finds, when she " gets about 
 
FOOD : CHIEF ARTICLES OF DIET 103 
 
 again," that her milk deserts her, and the grave 
 difficulty of rearing the baby is met by her with 
 a weekly 5d. tin of milk of a brand which has not 
 been separated, but which is a very inadequate 
 quantity for an infant. 
 
 The articles of diet other than bread, meat, 
 potatoes (with occasional suet puddings and 
 tinned milk), are fish, of which a shilling's worth 
 may be bought a week, and of which quite half 
 will go to provide the bread-winner with " rel- 
 ishes," while the other half may be eaten by the 
 mother and children ; bacon, which will be entirely 
 consumed by the man; and an occasional egg. 
 The tiny amounts of tea, dripping, butter, jam, 
 sugar, and greens, may be regarded rather in the 
 light of condiments than of food. 
 
 The diet where there are several children is 
 
 obviously chosen for its cheapness, and is of the 
 
 filling, stodgy kind. _ There is not enough of any- 
 
 ~ thing but bread. There is no variety. Nothing 
 
 is considered but money. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 BUYING, STORING, AND CARING FOR FOOD 
 
 THE place where food is bought is important. 
 How it is bought and when are also important 
 questions. The usual plan for a Lambeth house- 
 keeper is to make her great purchase on Saturday 
 evening when she gets her allowance. She prob- 
 ably buys the soap, wood, oil, tea, sugar, mar- 
 garine, tinned milk, and perhaps jam, for the 
 week. To these she adds the Sunday dinner, 
 which means a joint or part of a joint, greens, and 
 potatoes. The bread she gets daily, also the 
 rasher, fish, or other relish, for her husband's 
 special use. Further purchases of meat are made, 
 if they are made, about Wednesday, while pota- 
 toes and pot herbs, as well as fish, often come 
 round on barrows, and are usually bought as re- 
 quired. When she has put aside the rent, the insur- 
 ance, the boot club money, and spent the Saturday 
 night's five or six shillings, she keeps the pennies 
 for the gas-meter and the money for the little 
 extras in some kind of purse or private receptacle 
 which lives within reach of her hand. A woman, 
 during the time she is laid up at her confinement, 
 will sleep with her purse in her hand or under the 
 104 
 
BUYING AND STORING FOOD 105 
 
 pillow, and during the daytime she doles out with 
 an anxious heart the pennies for gas or the two- 
 pences for father's relish. She generally complains 
 bitterly that the neighbour who is " doing " for 
 her has a heavy hand with the margarine, and no 
 conscience with the tea or sugar. 
 
 The regular shopping is monotonous. The 
 order at the grocer's shop is nearly always the 
 same, as is also that at the oilman's. The Sun- 
 day dinner requires thought, but tends to repeat 
 itself with the more methodical housewife, who 
 has perhaps a leaning towards neck of mutton as 
 the most interesting of the cheaper joints, or 
 towards a half-shoulder as cutting to better ad- 
 vantage. It is often the same dinner week 
 after week one course of meat with greens and 
 potatoes. Some women indulge in flights of 
 fancy, and treat the family to a few pounds of fat 
 bacon at 6d. per pound, a quality which is not to 
 be recommended, or even to the extravagance of a 
 rabbit and onions for a change. These women 
 would be likely to vary the vegetables too ; and in 
 their accounts tomatoes, when tomatoes are cheap, 
 may appear. It is only in the budgets of the 
 very small family, however, that such extravagant 
 luxuries would creep in. 
 
 In households where there is but one room 
 there may be no storage space at all. Coal may 
 be kept in the one cupboard on the floor beside 
 the fireplace; or there may be such hoards of 
 mice in the walls that no place is safe for food but 
 
io6 BUYING AND STORING FOOD 
 
 a basin with a plate over it. One woman when 
 lying in bed early in the morning unravelled a 
 mystery which had puzzled her for weeks. She 
 had not been able to find out how the food she 
 kept on a high shelf of the dresser was being got 
 at by mice. On the morning in question her 
 eye was caught by movements which appeared 
 to her to be in the air above her head. To her 
 surprise, she realized that along procession of mice 
 was making use of her clothes-line to cross the 
 room and climb down the loose end on to the 
 high dresser shelf. They would, when satisfied, 
 doubtless have returned by the same route had 
 she not roused her husband. " But 'e ony terri- 
 fied 'em," she said sadly, " 'e never caught one." 
 In such cases it is necessary for the housekeeper 
 to buy all provisions other than tinned milk, 
 perhaps, day by day. She probably finds this 
 more extravagant even to the extent of paying 
 more for the article. Tea, butter, and sugar, by 
 the ounce may actually cost more, and they 
 seldom go so far. 
 
 Another reason for buying all necessaries daily 
 is that many men, though in a perfectly regular 
 job (such as some kinds of carting), are paid daily, 
 as though they were casuals. The amounts vary, 
 moreover. One day they bring home 43. 6d., 
 another 35. The housewife is never sure what 
 she will have to spend, and as the family needs 
 are, so must she supply necessaries out of the 
 irregular daily sum handed to her. 
 
BUYING AND STORING FOOD 107 
 
 The daily purchases of the wife of a dustsorter 
 are given below. The husband was paid 
 33. a day in cash, which he brought regularly to 
 his wife. He collected out of the material he 
 sorted, which came from the dustbins of West- 
 minster, enough broken bread to sell as pig-food 
 for a sum which paid both the rent and the burial 
 insurance. He also collected and brought home 
 each evening enough coal and cinders to supply 
 the family needs, and, curiously enough, he 
 collected and brought home a sufficiency of soap. 
 After paying 55. for rent and is. for insurance, 
 he had enough left from these extra sources of 
 income for his own pocket-money. With rent, 
 insurance, coal, and soap, provided, the house- 
 keeper would have been well off indeed, as Lam- 
 beth goes, could she have laid out her money to 
 better advantage. She never had more than 
 35. at a time, and was accustomed to buy 
 everything day by day. There was but one 
 room. There were four children, who looked 
 stronger than they were. The mother suffered 
 from anaemia, and was not a particularly good 
 manager, though she fed her children fairly well 
 and seemed to be a moderately good cook. She 
 had no oven. An account of how she laid out 
 her i8s. is given on pp. 108, 109. 
 
 It is obvious that this is an extravagant way of 
 buying. Not only is the woman charged more 
 for some items, such as sugar and butter, which 
 she prefers to margarine even at the extra price, 
 
io8 BUYING AND STORING FOOD 
 
 but the daily purchase leads to larger amounts 
 being used. Her husband is a teetotaller, but 
 likes strong tea, and that very sweet. Hence 
 12 ozs. of tea, 3 Ibs. of sugar, and 3 tins of milk. 
 The baby was very young and the mother anaemic, 
 and the 8d. for a girl to take it out is money use- 
 fully spent. Otherwise the infant would hardly 
 ever have left the room, as her mother does the 
 
 Monday, 35.: s. d. 
 2 ozs. tea, 2d.; Ib. sugar, id.; 4 ozs. 
 
 butter, 3 Jd.; bread, 3d. .. .. o 10 
 
 Potatoes, 2d.; onions, carrots, greens, 2^d. o 4! 
 
 Gas 02 
 
 In hand . . . . . . . . i 7 J 
 
 Tuesday, 33.: 
 
 2 ozs. tea, 2d.; J Ib. sugar, i|d.; 4 ozs. 
 
 butter, 3^d. ; bread, 3d o 10 
 
 One tin of milk, 3|d.; relish for husband's 
 
 tea, 2d. . . . . . . . . ..05^ 
 
 Potatoes, 2d.; greens and pot herbs, 3^d.; 
 
 meat, yd. . . . . . . . . i o| 
 
 Gas 02 
 
 In hand .. .. .. .. . . 2 1 1 
 
 Wednesday, 33.: 
 
 2 ozs. tea, 2d.; Ib. sugar, id.; 4 ozs. 
 
 butter, 3|d. ; bread, 3d o 10 
 
 i Ib. pieces, 4^d.; potatoes, 2d.; vegetables, 
 
 id.; rice, d o 8J 
 
 Clothing club . . . . . . i o 
 
 Gas 01 
 
 In hand 
 
BUYING AND STORING FOOD 109 
 
 daily marketing when the baby is asleep. Since 
 this account was made out the authorities have 
 advised the family to take two rooms at an ad- 
 vanced rental of 2s., of which the father and 
 mother each pay half. So the weekly list of pur- 
 chases has now to be made out of 173. The 
 
 Thursday, 33.: 
 
 \ Ib. sugar, id.; 4 ozs. butter, 3^d.; bread, s. d. 
 
 3d 08 
 
 One tin of milk, 3d.; meat, 6d.; potatoes, 
 
 2d.; Quaker oats, 2^d.; rice, d i i\ 
 
 Boot club . . . . . . . . ..10 
 
 Gas . . . . . . . . . . o i 
 
 In hand . . . . . . . . . . 
 
 Friday, 33.: 
 
 2 ozs. tea, 2d. ; \ Ib. sugar, id. ; 4 ozs. butter, 
 
 3|d.; bread, 3d 
 
 Suet, 2d.; flour, 2^d.; treacle, id. 
 
 Gas 
 
 Five days' pay for neighbour's girl to take 
 out the baby 
 
 In hand 
 
 Saturday, 33. + 35. 6d.= 6s. 6d.: 
 
 2 ozs. tea, 2d.; | Ib. sugar, ijd.; 4 ozs 
 
 butter, 3|d. ; bread, 6d 
 
 One tin of milk, 3jd.; bacon, 6d.; eggs, 2d. 
 
 potatoes, 2d.; greens, 2d. 
 Gas 
 
 Sunday's joint 
 Bakehouse 
 Blacklead, hearthstone, matches, soda 
 
 Husband's shirt 
 
 Baby's birth certificate 
 Girl to mind baby 
 
 O IO 
 
 o 6 
 
 O 2 
 
 o 6 
 
 2 O 
 
 o i 
 
 2 O 
 
 O 2 
 
 4 
 
 1 O 
 
 o 3 
 
 O 2 
 
no BUYING AND STORING FOOD 
 
 baby is six months old instead of five weeks, and 
 the mother's milk has completely failed her. 
 Thus the expenses increase, while the housekeep- 
 ing allowance is less. 
 
 In the case of women who handle the whole 
 week's wage at once, there is generally great need 
 of more cupboard space. Occasionally a scullery 
 helps to solve the problem, and there is often a 
 very shallow cupboard beside the chimney, high 
 enough from the floor to be clear of mice and 
 beetles, and out of reach of children. A kitchen 
 with the copper in it is a bad place for keeping 
 food; a kitchen infested with any kind of vermin 
 is also a bad place to keep food ; a kitchen which 
 is plagued with flies is equally impossible. The 
 women whose lives are passed in such kitchens may 
 feel that, in spite of the extra expense and waste, 
 daily buying of perishable food is a necessity. 
 
 A woman with a sick child one of six living 
 in one room, was allowed milk for the use of the 
 child, who was extremely ill. The only place 
 where she could keep the milk was a basin with 
 an old piece of wet rag thrown over it. The 
 visitor found seven flies in the milk, and many 
 others crawling on the inner side of the rag. The 
 weather was stifling. The room, though untidy, 
 was tolerably clean. But over the senseless child 
 on the one bed in the room hovered a great cloud 
 of flies. The mother stood hour after hour brush- 
 ing them away. On the advice of the visitor the 
 sick child was carried off there and then to the 
 
BUYING AND STORING FOOD in 
 
 infirmary, where it ultimately recovered. Once 
 the child was removed, the flies ceased to swarm 
 into the room. 
 
 Cooking, which has already been mentioned in 
 connection with old and burnt saucepans and 
 utensils, is necessarily very perfunctory and rudi- 
 mentary. To boil a neck with pot herbs on 
 Sunday, and make a stew of " pieces " on Wednes- 
 day, often finishes all that has to be done with 
 meat. The intermediate dinners will ring the 
 changes on cold neck, suet pudding, perhaps fried 
 fish or cheap sausages, and rice or potatoes. 
 Breakfast and tea, with the exception of the 
 husband's relishes, consist of tea, and bread 
 spread with butter, jam, or margarine. In 
 houses where no gas is laid on, the gas-stove can- 
 not take the place of a missing oven, and it is 
 extraordinary how many one-roomed dwellings 
 are without an oven. Two pots, both burned, a 
 frying-pan, and a kettle, do not make an equip- 
 ment with which it is easy to manage the deli- 
 cacies of cooking. Boiling can be done in a burnt 
 saucepan, provided there is water enough in the 
 can which stands behind the door to fill the pot 
 sufficiently. Frying is held to be easy, but fat is 
 not plentiful, and frying in Lambeth usually 
 means frizzling in a very tiny amount of half- 
 boiling grease. The great panful of fat which 
 would be used by a good cook is impossible of 
 attainment. To stand by and watch the cooking 
 is difficult when so many things have to be done 
 
H2 BUYING AND STORING FOOD 
 
 at once. The pot, once placed on the fire or the 
 gas-stove, has to look after itself, while the mother 
 nurses a baby, or does a bit of washing, or tidies 
 the room and gets out the few plates which she 
 calls " laying the dinner." The children all come 
 trooping in from school before she has finished, and 
 have to be scolded a little and told to get out of the 
 way, and when she has got them arranged sitting 
 or standing round the table she helps each one as 
 quickly and fairly as she can. If her husband is not 
 there, she may put aside his portion to be warmed 
 up and eaten later. She does not attempt to eat 
 with the family. She is server and provider, and 
 her work is to see that everyone gets a fair share, 
 according to his or her deserts and the merits of 
 the case. She may or may not sit down, but 
 perhaps with the baby in her arms she feeds the 
 youngest but one with potato and gravy or suet 
 pudding, whichever is the dinner of the day, for 
 fear it shall waste its food and spoil its clothes. 
 When the family have finished what she sets 
 before them, she sees to washing of hands where 
 the age of the washer is tender, and thankfully 
 packs them all off again to afternoon school, 
 having as likely as not called back the one who 
 banged the door to tell him to go out again and 
 "do it prop'ly." The husband may not like his 
 dinner put aside for him, in which case a second 
 cooking is necessary. So much has to be done 
 each day. The Lambeth woman has no joy in 
 cooking for its own sake. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 ACTUAL MENUS OF SEVERAL WORKING 
 MEN'S FAMILIES 
 
 THE following is a week's menu taken from Mrs. 
 X., the wife of a carter. His wages vary between 
 195. and 235. 6d., according to hours worked. In 
 a Bank Holiday week they went down to 155. 
 He usually keeps is. a week, and has his dinners 
 at home. There are four children, all under five. 
 The rent is 45. 6d. for one room. They do not 
 insure, and are slightly in debt. Mrs. X. is a 
 good manager. This menu was taken from a 
 week when Mrs. X. had 22s. 6d. given her by her 
 husband : 
 
 Sunday. Breakfast: One loaf, i oz. butter, 
 \ oz. tea, a farthing's- worth of tinned milk, a half- 
 pennyworth of sugar. Kippers extra for Mr. X. 
 Dinner: Hashed beef, batter pudding, greens, and 
 potatoes. Tea : Same as breakfast, but Mr. X. has 
 shrimps instead of kippers. 
 
 Monday. Breakfast: Same as Sunday. Mr. X. 
 has a little cold meat. Dinner: Sunday's dinner 
 cold, with pickles, or warmed up with greens and 
 potatoes. Tea: One loaf, marmalade, and tea. 
 Mr. X. has two eggs. 
 
 113 8 
 
H4 MENUS OF SEVERAL FAMILIES 
 
 Tuesday. Breakfast: One loaf, i oz. butter, 
 two pennyworth of cocoa. Bloaters for Mr. X. 
 Dinner: Bread and dripping, with cheese and 
 tomatoes. Tea: One loaf, marmalade, and tea. 
 Fish and fried potatoes for Mr. X. 
 
 Wednesday. Breakfast: One loaf, i oz. butter, 
 tea. Corned beef for Mr. X. Dinner: Boiled 
 bacon, beans, and potatoes. Tea: One loaf, 
 i oz. butter, and tea. Cold bacon for Mr. X. 
 
 Thursday. Breakfast: One loaf, jam, and tea. 
 Dinner: Mutton chops, greens, and potatoes. 
 Tea: One loaf, i oz. butter, and tea. 
 
 Friday. Breakfast: One loaf, i oz. butter, and 
 tea. Dinner: Sausages and potatoes. Tea: One 
 loaf, jam, and tea. 
 
 Saturday. Breakfast: One loaf, i oz. butter, 
 two pennyworth of cocoa. Dinner: Pudding of 
 "pieces," greens, and potatoes. Tea: One loaf, 
 i oz. butter, and tea. Fish and fried potatoes for 
 Mr. X. 
 
 These children look fairly well and seem vigor- 
 ous. The baby is being nursed. The other three 
 live chiefly on bread, with potatoes and greens 
 and a tiny portion of meat at dinner. 
 
 The budget of the whole expenses of this family 
 for a week, though not necessarily for the same 
 week as that of the menu, is given on p. 115. 
 
 Mr. Y. is a builder's handyman, whose wages 
 average about 253. a week. He allows as a rule 
 22S. 6d. to his wife, out of which she gives him back 
 35. a week for his dinners when at work. There 
 
MENUS OF SEVERAL FAMILIES 115 
 
 are six children under thirteen. The rent for 
 two rooms upstairs is 6s. 6d., and burial insurance 
 is is. 
 
 Sunday. Breakfast: One loaf, jam, and tea. 
 Bloater for him. Dinner : Half shoulder of mutton, 
 greens, potatoes, and suet pudding, for all. Tea: 
 Bread, butter, and tea. 
 
 Monday. Breakfast: Bread, dripping, and tea. 
 Cold meat from Sunday for him. Dinner for 
 mother and children: Cold meat and potatoes 
 over from Sunday. Tea: Bread, jam, and tea. 
 
 Tuesday. Breakfast : Bread, dripping, and tea, 
 for all. Dinner for mother and children: Hashed 
 meat over from Monday and potatoes. Tea: 
 Bread, radishes, and tea. 
 
 
 s. d. 
 
 
 s. d. 
 
 Rent 
 
 4 6 
 
 12 loaves . . 
 
 2 9 
 
 i\ cwt. coal 
 
 2 O 
 
 i Ib. butter 
 
 I 2 
 
 Gas 
 
 I 6 
 
 8 ozs. tea . . 
 
 o 8 
 
 Soap, soda, blue 
 Clothing club 
 
 O 2 
 
 o 6 
 
 4 Ibs. sugar 
 i tin of milk 
 
 o 8 
 o 4 
 
 Paid off debt 
 
 I 
 
 i Ib. cocoa . . 
 
 o 4 
 
 
 
 
 6 Ibs. meat 
 
 2 6 
 
 
 9 8 
 
 12 Ibs. potatoes 
 
 o 6 
 
 
 
 Greens and pot 
 
 
 
 
 herbs 
 
 o 5 
 
 
 
 I Ib. currants 
 
 o 3 
 
 
 
 i quartern flour 
 
 o 6 
 
 
 
 Suet 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 i Ib. bacon 
 
 o 8 
 
 
 
 Jam 
 Fish 
 
 o 4 
 o 6 
 
 
 
 Sausages 
 
 o 7 
 
 
 
 Dripping 
 
 o 4 
 
 
 
 Cheese 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 
 12 10 
 
n6 MENUS OF SEVERAL FAMILIES 
 
 Wednesday. Breakfast: Bread, dripping, and 
 tea. Dinner for mother and children : Dumplings 
 in yesterday's gravy. Tea: Bread, jam, and tea, 
 for all. 
 
 Thursday. Breakfast: Bread, dripping, and 
 tea. Dinner for mother and children: Rice and 
 treacle. Tea: Bread, jam, and tea. 
 
 Friday. Breakfast: Bread, jam, and tea. 
 Dinner for mother and children: Barley broth 
 and potatoes. Tea: Bread, dripping, and tea. 
 
 Saturday. Breakfast: Bread, dripping, and 
 tea. Dinner for mother and children: Ib. 
 sausages and potatoes. Tea: Bread, jam, and tea. 
 
 One of Mrs. T.'s weekly budgets is here given: 
 
 
 s. 
 
 d. 
 
 Rent 
 
 6 
 
 6 
 
 Insurance 
 
 i 
 
 o 
 
 Gas 
 
 
 
 6 
 
 i cwt. coal 
 Wood 
 
 o 
 o 
 
 8* 
 
 2 
 
 Soap, soda, blue, 
 
 
 
 starch 
 
 
 
 5 
 
 Boracic powder . . 
 
 o 
 
 i 
 
 Baby's soap 
 
 o 
 
 2 
 
 
 9 
 
 6* 
 
 Husband's dinners 
 14 loaves . . 
 
 1 Ib. dripping 
 12 ozs. butter 
 8 ozs. tea 
 
 2 tins of milk 
 Meat 
 
 6 Ibs. potatoes 
 
 Vegetables 
 
 quartern flour 
 
 Bloaters .. 
 
 Suet 
 
 3 Ibs. sugar 
 
 d. 
 o 
 
 4 
 6 
 
 9 
 8 
 6 
 3 
 
 6 
 3 
 3 
 
 2 
 
 6 
 
 12 IZf 
 
 It will be noticed in this menu that Mr. T. 
 gets no relish for either tea or breakfast through- 
 out the week, with the exception of his Sunday 
 treat. His 6d. dinner cannot be of a heavy 
 nature, and his share of the family breakfasts 
 
MENUS OF SEVERAL FAMILIES 117 
 
 and teas would in no way make up for a scanty 
 dinner. He is not, therefore, too well fed. His 
 wife and six children, who manage upon the 
 dinners given in the menu, obviously do not get 
 sufficient nourishment. This woman is an ex- 
 cellent cook, but her equipment is poor. She 
 keeps her two rooms as clean as a new pin, and is 
 punctual and methodical to a fault. But she is 
 worn and tired, and unable to take in new ideas. 
 The children are fairly well, but nervous and 
 restless. They are not up to the normal size for 
 their age, nor are they intelligent for their years. 
 They are docile and give no trouble at school, 
 and are considered " well brought up " by all 
 who come into contact with them. 
 
 The following menu is that of the woman 
 whose daily expenditure of 33. a day is given in 
 a previous chapter. Her husband, it will be 
 remembered, pays rent and insurance, and brings 
 home from his dust-heaps a sufficiency of fuel 
 and soap. It is, unfortunately, not the menu of 
 the week of which the expenditure is given. 
 Mr. Z. allows his wife 33. a day. There are four 
 children under six. The rent of the one room is 
 5s. 6d. 
 
 Sunday. Breakfast: Half a loaf of bread, 
 butter, and tea. Dinner : Roast mutton, potatoes, 
 and greens (5d.). Tea: Half a loaf of bread, 
 butter, and tea; 2d. cake for him. 
 
 Monday. Breakfast: Half a loaf of bread, 
 rolled oats with tinned milk. Dinner: Cold meat 
 
n8 MENUS OF SEVERAL FAMILIES 
 
 cooked up with onions, carrots, greens, and 
 potatoes. Tea: Half a loaf of bread, jam, and 
 tea. 
 
 Tuesday. Breakfast: Half a loaf of bread, jam, 
 and tea. Dinner: Mutton chops, potatoes, and 
 greens. Tea: Half a loaf of bread, butter, and 
 tea; fish for him. 
 
 Wednesday. Breakfast: Half a loaf of bread, 
 butter, and cocoa. Dinner: Stew i Ib. pieces 
 (4Jd.), with rice, carrots, onions, and potatoes. 
 Tea: Half a loaf of bread, butter, and tea; fish 
 for him. 
 
 Thursday. Breakfast: Half a loaf of bread, 
 tea, rolled oats and tinned milk. Dinner: Boiled 
 neck, with potatoes, onions, rice, and greens. 
 Tea: Half a loaf of bread, butter, and tea; fish 
 for him. 
 
 Friday. Breakfast: Half a loaf of bread, 
 butter, and tea. Dinner: Suet pudding and 
 treacle. Tea: Half a loaf of bread, jam, and tea. 
 
 Saturday. Breakfast: Half a loaf of bread, 
 butter, and tea. Dinner: Eggs (5d.) and bacon 
 (3d.). Tea: Half a loaf of bread, butter, and tea. 
 
 It has already been admitted that Mrs. Z. is not 
 such a good manager as most of the women dealt 
 with in this investigation. She had two special 
 difficulties to struggle with. Her husband's trade 
 caused him to return home with clothes and 
 skin almost equally black. He had no chance 
 of a bath in the one room, and her instincts in 
 the direction of cleanliness whatever they may 
 
MENUS OF SEVERAL FAMILIES 119 
 
 once have been had evidently wilted in an 
 unsympathetic atmosphere. Moreover, his hours 
 were very irregular, and he was often a great deal 
 at home in the afternoon. The daily payments 
 were another stumbling-block, and there was no 
 absolute certainty that the sum received would 
 be 33. Occasionally it was 2s., and sometimes 
 it was only is. 6d. On one never-to-be-forgotten 
 occasion when the visitor was present it was 
 nothing at all, owing to his having arrived at 
 work too late. These two influences certainly 
 caused Mrs. Z. to be somewhat of a sloven; as 
 she said: " It was rather funny gettin' accustomed 
 ter sleepin' with 'im all black like that." And 
 all the time Mr. Z. is a most excellent husband, 
 with a great admiration for his nice-looking wife. 
 Mr. Z. never seemed to ail. He was a small man, 
 and very muscular for his height. Mrs. Z., 
 though anasmic, was a well-made, upright young 
 woman, who was rather proud of her pretty 
 figure. The four children were big and fat and 
 fairly intelligent. They seemed thoroughly satis- 
 factory until the eldest boy started " was tin' ' 
 a process Lambeth children are given to embark- 
 ing upon. He " wasted " and grew visibly 
 thinner, to the complete bewilderment, according 
 to Mrs. Z., of the " mission " doctor and the 
 hospital doctor, to whom she took him. Both 
 parents were overcome with alarm and sorrow, 
 and the day that Ernie turned and took his food 
 again was a day of great rejoicing. He never 
 
120 MENUS OF SEVERAL FAMILIES 
 
 seemed to be so strong again, however, and the 
 obstinate continuance of a bad form of eczema 
 upon all the other three children, in spite of 
 every kind of treatment by doctor and district 
 nurse, points to a worse state of health than 
 seemed at first to obtain amongst them. Mrs. Z. 
 was a very affectionate mother, and prided herself 
 on the fact that her four children were " a sight 
 bigger for their age " than all the others in the 
 street. 
 
 The next menu is that of Mrs. O., whose 
 husband is a printer's labourer. He earns 303. 
 a week, and at Christmas he works overtime, 
 which enables him, by working very long hours, 
 to earn an irregular amount of extra money. 
 Out of this he buys the children, of whom there 
 are eight, their boots for the year, and some part 
 of their clothing. 
 
 Sunday. Breakfast: Fish all round, loaf of 
 bread, margarine, 2 teaspoonfuls of tea, 4J tea- 
 spoonfuls of tinned milk, small spoonful of sugar 
 each. Dinner: 3J- Ibs. meat (is. gd.), greens, and 
 potatoes ; very occasionally a suet pudding. Tea : 
 Tea, bread, margarine, and watercress (id.). 
 
 Monday. Breakfast: Tea, bread, and mar- 
 garine; rasher for him. Dinner: Cold meat and 
 vegetables left from Sunday. Tea is bread and 
 margarine every day in the week. 
 
 Tuesday. Breakfast: Tea, bread, and mar- 
 garine; haddock for him. Dinner: Baked breast 
 of mutton (7-Jd.), greens, and potatoes. 
 
MENUS OF SEVERAL FAMILIES 121 
 
 Wednesday. Breakfast: Tea, bread, and mar- 
 garine ; rasher for him. Dinner : Stew of " pieces," 
 pot herbs, and potatoes. 
 
 Thursday. Breakfast: Tea, bread, and mar- 
 garine; fish for him (2d.). Dinner: i Ib. sausages 
 (5d.) and potatoes; J Ib. "skirt " of beef for him. 
 
 Friday. Breakfast: Tea, bread, and margarine ; 
 rasher for him (2d.). Dinner: Fried strips of 
 breast of mutton (4Jd.) and potatoes; two chops 
 for him (5d.). 
 
 Saturday. Breakfast: Tea, bread, and mar- 
 garine; fish for him (2d.). Dinner: i Ib. pork 
 chops (9Jd.), four to a pound; he has one. Other 
 three divided among seven children, with potatoes. 
 She has an egg later. Supper: 6 ozs. cold meat 
 from cookshop, with a lettuce for him. If any 
 over she has some. 
 
 The mother here is a tall, well-made woman, 
 and the father, who has been a soldier and went 
 all through the South African War, is also of 
 decent proportions. The children, however, are 
 stunted, particularly the younger ones. They 
 are sharp and intelligent, and very well behaved. 
 They are not often ill, except for the usual visita- 
 tions of measles and whooping-cough, but their 
 eyes need close attention, which their mother 
 religiously and painstakingly gives them daily. 
 Two of them have been operated on for adenoids, 
 and the third youngest, who is three, is no larger 
 than a baby of one year, owing to a feeble and 
 ailing babyhood. Both parents are specially 
 
122 MENUS OF SEVERAL FAMILIES 
 
 attached to this child, who gave the mother bad 
 nights for two years, and has needed incessant 
 care and attention ever since her birth. The 
 two boy babies, of two years and six months 
 respectively, both terribly undersized, are far 
 less noticed and petted than this delicate little 
 girl of three whose life has always hung on a 
 thread. 
 
 An interesting menu and budget is that of the 
 Q.'s. He is a feather-cleaner's assistant, and his 
 wages are 253., out of which he allows 2os. to his 
 wife, and keeps 53. for himself. There are two 
 children. They pay 6s. for the rent of two 
 rooms. Mrs. Q. is a hard-working woman, a good 
 manager, and extremely intelligent. The chief 
 interest in this menu is that Mrs. Q. shows the 
 way in which the little income is divided. Besides 
 keeping 53. a week for his own clothing and 
 pocket-money, Mr. Q. has 6d. a day allowed him 
 by his wife for his dinners on six days a week 
 when he is at work. Moreover, he demands is. id. 
 to be spent weekly on himself alone for relishes 
 at breakfast or tea. The income works out as 
 given on p. 123. 
 
 The menu runs thus: Throughout the week 
 every breakfast for mother and children consists 
 of their shares in half a loaf of bread, with a touch 
 from the weekly six pennyworth of margarine. 
 This is accompanied by tea made from the 4 ozs. 
 which has to last for seven days. The 2d. tin of 
 milk and the 2 Ibs. of sugar, which also have to 
 
MENUS OF SEVERAL FAMILIES 123 
 
 do seven days' duty, furnish the tea with milk 
 and sugar. The husband's relish at breakfast 
 usually takes the shape of an egg. 
 
 Sunday. Dinner is roast mutton, greens, and 
 potatoes. Tea is tea, made as above, and toast. 
 All the week-day teas for mother and children 
 are a repetition of breakfast. Mr. Q. has fish or 
 a rasher added. 
 
 The week-day dinners run thus : 
 
 Monday. Cold mutton left from Sunday. 
 
 Tuesday. Cold mutton left from Monday. 
 
 Wednesday. Stew of J- Ib. " pieces " (2d.) and 
 potatoes. 
 
 Mr. Q.'s Expenses. 
 
 s. d. 
 
 Kept by Mr. D. . . 5 o 
 His week-day din- 
 ners .. -.33 
 Relishes . . . I i 
 
 9 4 
 
 General Food shared by 
 Mr.Q. 
 
 
 s. 
 
 d. 
 
 Bread 
 
 2 
 
 z i 
 
 i Ib. margarine 
 
 o 
 
 6 
 
 4 ozs. tea . . 
 
 o 
 
 4 
 
 i tin of milk 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 2 Ibs. sugar 
 
 o 
 
 5 
 
 Sunday potatoes 
 
 o 
 
 2 
 
 Sunday greens 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 Suet * .. 
 
 o 
 
 I 
 
 Sunday joint 
 
 I 
 
 O 
 
 
 4 
 
 III 
 
 General Expenses. 
 
 s. d. 
 
 Rent . . 60 
 
 Coal 
 Gas 
 
 Soap, etc. 
 Insurance 
 
 9 61 
 
 Food not shared by Mr. Q. 
 Week-day Dinners of 
 Mrs. Q. and Children. 
 
 s. d. 
 
 Meat . . . . 10 
 Potatoes . . . . o 2 
 
124 MENUS OF SEVERAL FAMILIES 
 
 Thursday. Meat pudding from other Ib. of 
 " pieces " (2jd.) and potatoes. 
 
 Friday. Liver (3d.), one rasher (i^d.), and 
 potatoes. 
 
 Saturday. Two herrings (3d.). 
 
 The sad part of these menus is that, though on 
 paper it looks very selfish of Mr. Q., in practice 
 his share of the half-loaf, even though accom- 
 panied by an egg, does not seem a very satis- 
 factory or over-luxurious breakfast for a working 
 man. His daily dinner at 6Jd. cannot be an 
 oppressive meal, whilst his tea cannot be much 
 more satisfying than his breakfast. And yet, in 
 order to feed him as well as this, his wife has to 
 make about a third of the amount do for herself. 
 It is not usual to find the accounts kept in this 
 manner, but Mrs. Q. chose to show how the money 
 went. As a matter of fact, except for the 53. 
 which Mr. Q. keeps for himself a sum greater 
 than that which is usually retained by the husband 
 the arrangements of the menu are quite 
 ordinary. 
 
 The next menu is that of Mrs. U., whose 
 husband drives a mail- van at night. His wages 
 are 255. a week, and he allows his wife 2 is. 
 Out of the 43. kept by him, the usual 4d. goes in 
 National Health Insurance, 6d. in a sick club, 
 id. to the hospital, id. to the mess-room, and 6d. 
 to his trade union. He is fed entirely at home. 
 Mrs. U. has a daughter of fourteen, who goes out 
 to daily work and is fed at home. She earns 43. 
 
MENUS OF SEVERAL FAMILIES 125 
 
 a week, and brings it home regularly to her 
 mother. Thus the housekeeping allowance is 
 255. a week. Mrs. U. bakes at home in the gas- 
 oven, at the cost in gas of about 6d. a week, and 
 for flour and yeast of 45. 7d. The item for bread 
 is therefore high, but so also is the quality of 
 the bread. There are six children. 
 
 Most breakfasts and teas in the week consist 
 of bread, margarine, tea, cocoa, or coffee, or 
 occasionally of porridge and treacle. 
 
 Sunday. Dinner: Target of mutton (iod.), 
 potatoes, greens, suet pudding, and haricot beans. 
 
 Monday. Dinner: Boiled neck (4d.), potatoes, 
 and dumplings. 
 
 Tuesday. Dinner: Stew of "pieces" (4d.) 
 with pot herbs and potatoes. 
 
 Wednesday. Dinner: Brown hash (4d.) and 
 dumplings. 
 
 Thursday. Dinner: Meat pudding of shin of 
 beef (4d.), greens, and potatoes. 
 
 Friday. Dinner: Fish (i lb., 4d.), parsley 
 sauce, and potatoes. 
 
 Saturday. Dinner: Liver (4d.), bacon (2d.), 
 greens, and potatoes. 
 
 A week's budget of Mrs. U. is given on p. 126. 
 
 Mrs. U. is an excellent manager, and certainly 
 tries to feed her family well. But her plans are 
 sadly interfered with when one of the children 
 needs new boots, and, with six children, one or 
 other of them is always needing something new. 
 There are two courses which are taken according 
 
126 MENUS OF SEVERAL FAMILIES 
 
 to the merits of the case. One is to pawn the 
 mother's boots, thus rendering her a prisoner in 
 the two tiny rooms until the money to release her 
 belongings can be raised, and the other is to save 
 the amount out of food. She makes all the clothes 
 that can be made at home, and is an expert 
 needlewoman. She was a professed cook earning 
 i a week before she married. No burial insur- 
 ance is paid in this family. 
 
 Rent 
 
 Gas 
 
 i cwt. coal 
 
 Soap, soda 
 
 s. d. 
 
 s. d. 
 
 7 
 
 Flour and yeast 
 
 4 7 
 
 I 6 
 
 Meat 
 
 2 6 
 
 2 l 
 
 Suet 
 
 O ^ 
 
 2 
 
 Potatoes . . 
 
 I 
 
 
 Vegetables 
 
 o 6 
 
 o 9j 
 
 2 Ibs. margarine 
 
 I O 
 
 
 3 Ibs. sugar 
 
 o 7 
 
 
 Bacon 
 
 
 O 2 
 
 
 6 ozs. tea 
 
 
 o 6 
 
 
 Cocoa 
 
 
 o 3 
 
 
 Coffee 
 
 
 o 3 
 
 
 Fish 
 
 
 o 4 
 
 
 Rice 
 
 
 2 
 
 
 Split peas 
 
 
 2| 
 
 
 Currants 
 
 
 2 
 
 
 Lard 
 
 
 4 
 
 
 Oatmeal 
 
 
 2* 
 
 
 Treacle 
 
 
 if 
 
 
 Salt and pepper 
 Cow's milk 
 
 O 2 
 
 o 8 
 
 
 Eggs 
 
 o 3 
 
 
 I 4 2$ 
 
 We now come to the week's menu of a couple 
 of families where the man was temporarily out 
 of work, and took anything he could get. Mr. T. 
 was carman for a large firm that employed all its 
 
MENUS OF SEVERAL FAMILIES 127 
 
 enormous number of carmen by the day. The 
 inner ring of men were given a day's work every 
 day, and earned 33. 6d., which they were paid on 
 leaving work each night. The less fortunate 
 outer ring were given a couple or three days' work 
 in the week. No notice was taken or given on 
 either side. A day's work might mean at Christ- 
 mas time a day of twenty hours, and no meal-time 
 allowed. It might mean a much shorter day, 
 but usually ran about twelve hours. Mr. T. 
 had two days' work a week, but he washed down 
 another man's van every day for is. 6d. a week. 
 Occasionally he was lucky enough to have two 
 vans to wash, when his money would amount to 
 IDS. He allowed his wife 8s. 6d. There was one 
 child. The rent for the single room was 33. 6d., 
 and there was no insurance. 
 
 Sunday. Breakfast : Bloater for father, i tea- 
 spoonful of tea between them, i teaspoonful of 
 milk from tin each, i small spoonful of sugar each, 
 two slices of bread and margarine. Dinner: Six 
 pennyworth of neck of mutton, greens and potatoes 
 given by mother. Tea: Two slices of bread, 
 margarine, and tea. 
 
 Monday. Breakfast: Two slices of bread and 
 butter, with tea, for every breakfast in the week. 
 Dinner: Cold meat and vegetables left from 
 Sunday. Tea: Two slices of bread and butter, 
 with tea, for every tea in the week. 
 
 Tuesday. Dinner: Fresh herring each, bread 
 and butter (one slice). 
 
128 MENUS OF SEVERAL FAMILIES 
 
 Wednesday. Dinner: Ib. "pieces" (3d.) 
 stewed with potatoes, which were given by mother. 
 
 Thursday. Dinner: What is left of stew and 
 potatoes. 
 
 Friday. Dinner: J- Ib. rashers (3d.), with 
 potatoes given by mother. 
 
 Saturday. Dinner: The other \ Ib. rashers, 
 with potatoes given by mother. 
 
 A week's budget runs thus : 
 
 
 s. 
 
 d. 
 
 
 s. d. 
 
 Rent 
 
 3 
 
 6 
 
 9 loaves . . 
 
 2 Of 
 
 Gas 
 
 
 5 
 
 4 ozs. tea . . 
 
 o 4 
 
 Newspaper 
 Candle . . 
 
 o 
 
 
 
 i 
 i 
 
 i Ib. sugar 
 I tin of milk 
 
 O 2 
 O ^ 
 
 Soap, id.; soda, \ 
 
 . o 
 
 i| 
 
 4 ozs. butter 
 
 o 3* 
 
 Blacklead 
 
 o 
 
 oi 
 
 ij Ibs. meat 
 
 o 9 
 
 Paid off cradle 
 
 o 
 
 6" 
 
 
 
 
 A 
 
 8 i 
 
 
 * 10^ 
 
 It will be noticed that no coal appears. The 
 time of year was summer, and the fire was never 
 lighted during the thirteen weeks of their life on 
 8s. 6d. a week. The five pennyworth of gas was used 
 entirely for cooking, and light was supplied by the 
 farthing candle. The newspaper was their Sunday 
 treat, and was read solemnly through from first 
 column to last by both young people. It chronicled 
 more murders and multiple births than any paper 
 the visitor had ever seen. Mrs. T. would say in 
 course of polite conversation : " Have you seen the 
 news five at a birth ?" Then she would produce 
 a picture of three nurses and two doctors, each 
 holding a baby, and would murmur regretfully: 
 " They're most of 'em dead." 
 
MENUS OF SEVERAL FAMILIES 129 
 
 The next case is that of a Mrs. X., a deserted 
 wife, with three children under eight. Mrs. X, 
 had " taken the law of " Mr. X., and there was 
 " an order out against him " for 75. a week. 
 But as she was never able to make him pay it or 
 any part of it, she had to exist with the three 
 children on her earnings as an office cleaner in a 
 large bank in the city, where she was paid I2S. 
 a week. Unfortunately the bank was very far 
 from her home, and she spent 2S. a week on fares, 
 which sounds very extravagant, but it must be 
 remembered that she went to her work twice a 
 day. Her hours were six to nine in the mornings, 
 and six in the evenings until finished. She rented 
 a small room for 2s. 6d. a week until the sanitary 
 authorities found her out, and obliged her to move 
 into two smaller rooms at a rent of 43. 6d. Owing 
 to her lack of beds and bedding she and her three 
 children were forced to sleep all in one bed in one 
 of the two smaller rooms exactly as they did when 
 she had but the one larger room. To mind the baby 
 of two while she was at work morning and evening 
 she paid a neighbour is. a week. Added to her 
 regular wage of I2S. as office cleaner, she occasion- 
 ally had a job on Saturdays, which brought her 
 in is. more, so that her income sometimes 
 amounted to 133. a week. 
 
 Her menu ran as follows : 
 
 Sunday. Breakfast: Half a loaf, margarine, 
 and tea. Dinner: Sausages, i lb. (4d.), or 
 " pieces " (4d.), potatoes, sometimes pot herbs, 
 
 9 
 
130 MENUS OF SEVERAL FAMILIES 
 
 sometimes greens. Tea: Half a loaf, margarine, 
 and tea. 
 
 Every breakfast and every tea in the week is 
 half a loaf, dripping or margarine, and tea. 
 
 Monday. Dinner: Remains of sausages and 
 potatoes. 
 
 Tuesday. Dinner: Flour pancakes, with sugar. 
 
 Wednesday. Dinner: j- Ib. bacon, half a loaf of 
 bread. 
 
 Thursday. Dinner: halfpennyworth of fish for 
 Lulu, and halfpennyworth of potatoes. Landlord 
 downstairs gave Mrs. X. some meat pie and 
 potatoes. 
 
 Friday. Dinner: Bread, margarine, and tea. 
 
 Saturday. Dinner: Bread and three bloaters. 
 
 The following is a week's budget : 
 
 s. 
 
 d. 
 
 S. 
 
 d. 
 
 Rent 
 
 4 
 
 6 
 
 6 loaves . . 
 
 i 
 
 10 
 
 Baby minded 
 
 i 
 
 o 
 
 2 Ib. sugar 
 
 o 
 
 4 
 
 Fares 
 
 
 2 
 
 o 
 
 I tin of milk 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 Coal 
 
 
 
 
 6| 
 
 4 Ibs. potatoes 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 Lamp oil 
 
 
 O 
 
 2 
 
 Flour 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 Wood 
 
 
 o 
 
 2 
 
 Meat and fish 
 
 
 
 4 
 
 Matches 
 
 
 
 
 i 
 
 4 ozs. tea . . 
 
 o 
 
 4 
 
 Soap, soda 
 
 blue o 
 
 2 i 
 
 Dripping . . 
 
 o 
 
 3 
 
 Sickness insurance o 
 
 3 
 
 Margarine 
 
 
 
 of 
 
 Burial insurance o 
 
 3 
 
 Oatmeal . . 
 
 o 
 
 3 
 
 9 it 
 
 3 IO I 
 
 The eldest boy of seven has dinners at school 
 five days in the week in term-time. The girl is 
 three and a half, and is fed at home. The baby 
 is two years old. All the children are extremely 
 delicate. Since this menu was taken Mrs. X. 
 
MENUS OF SEVERAL FAMILIES 131 
 
 has been lucky enough to get help from some kind 
 people. They have seen her elder boy through 
 an attack of rheumatic fever, and have clothed 
 the three children in warm and decent garments. 
 Without such timely help she would in all proba- 
 bility have lost her boy. 
 
 There are those who, if they happen to read 
 these weekly menus, will criticise with deep 
 feeling the selection of the materials from which 
 they are composed. It is not necessary to pretend 
 that they are the absolute best that could be done, 
 even upon that money. It is quite likely that 
 someone who had strength, wisdom, and vitality, 
 who did not live that life in those tiny, crowded 
 rooms, in that lack of light and air, who was not 
 bowed down with worry, but was herself econo- 
 mically independent of the man who earned the 
 money, could lay out his few shillings with a better 
 eye to scientific food value. It is quite as likely, 
 however, that the man who earned the money 
 would entirely refuse the scientific food, and 
 demand his old tasty kippers and meat. It is he 
 who has to be satisfied in the long-run, and if he 
 desires pickles, pickles there will be. The fact 
 that there is not enough money to buy good, 
 healthy house-room means that appetites are 
 jaded, and that food which would be nutritious 
 and valuable, and would be greedily eaten by 
 people who lived in the open air, seems tasteless 
 and sickly to those who have slept four in a bed 
 in a room 10 feet by 12 feet. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 AMOUNT SPENT A HEAD ON FOOD PER WEEK, 
 PER DAY 
 
 THE remarkable thing about these budgets is the 
 small amount left for food after all other neces- 
 saries have been paid for. When it comes to a 
 pinch, food is the elastic item. Rent is occasion- 
 ally not paid at all during a crisis, but the know- 
 ledge that it is mounting up, and that eventually 
 it must be paid keeps these steady folk from that 
 expedient save at the very last resource. A little 
 less food all round, though a disagreeable ex- 
 perience, leaves no bill in shillings and pence to 
 be paid afterwards. Down to a certain low 
 minimum, therefore, food may sink before leaving 
 the rent unpaid, or before pawning begins. That 
 low minimum differs in different families. It is a 
 question of the standard to which each has been 
 accustomed, but that it is possible to be accus- 
 tomed to an extraordinarily low standard these 
 budgets amply prove. 
 
 The following are a number of weekly budgets 
 taken at random : 
 
 Mr. A., whose house was visited from January, 
 132 
 
AMOUNT SPENT A HEAD ON FOOD 133 
 
 1911, to February, 1912, was a railway-carriage 
 washer, and was paid i8s. for a six days' week, 
 alternately with 2 is. for a seven days' week. 
 His wife was a good manager, but was in delicate 
 health. He was an extraordinarily good husband, 
 and brought home to her his entire wage. There 
 were three children born, and three alive. 
 
 -4 21/0 Week. 
 
 
 Left for Food, 8/1. 
 
 
 s. 
 
 d. 
 
 s. 
 
 d. 
 
 Rent .. ..7 
 
 o 
 
 1 1 loaves . . . . 2 
 
 7 
 
 Clothing club (for 
 
 
 i quartern flour o 
 
 5* 
 
 two weeks) . . I 
 
 2 
 
 Meat .. ..i 
 
 10 
 
 Burial insurance (for 
 
 
 Potatoes and greens o 
 
 9i 
 
 two weeks) I 
 
 6 
 
 i Ib. butter 
 
 o 
 
 6 
 
 Coal and wood 
 
 
 i 
 
 7 
 
 i Ib. jam . . 
 
 
 
 3 
 
 Coke 
 
 
 o 
 
 3 
 
 6 ozs. tea . . 
 
 
 
 6 
 
 Gas 
 
 
 o 
 
 10 
 
 2 Ib. sugar 
 
 o 
 
 4 
 
 Soap, soda 
 
 
 
 
 5 
 
 I tin of milk 
 
 
 
 4 
 
 Matches . . 
 
 
 o 
 
 i 
 
 Cocoa 
 
 
 
 4 
 
 Blacklead, blacking o 
 
 i 
 
 Suet 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 12 
 
 ii 
 
 8 
 
 I 
 
 Average per head for food all round the family, 
 is. 7Jd. a week, or less than 3d. a day. But a 
 working man cannot do on less than 6d. a 
 day, or 35. 6d. a week. This reduces the mother 
 and children to is. ijd. a week, or less than 2d. 
 a day. 
 
 Mr. B., whose house was visited from July, 1911, 
 till September, 1912, was a printer's labourer, 
 whose wages ranged between 20s. and 26s. 
 a week. He usually allowed 2os. for house- 
 hold. There were six children born, and six 
 alive. 
 
134 AMOUNT SPENT A HEAD ON FOOD 
 
 November 23, 1911. 
 
 
 Left for Food, 7/0 1. 
 
 
 s. 
 
 d. 
 
 s. 
 
 d. 
 
 Rent .. ..8 
 
 
 
 14 loaves 
 
 3 
 
 2 : 
 
 Burial insurance i 
 
 8 
 
 Meat 
 
 
 
 
 
 10 
 
 Boot club 
 
 I 
 
 o 
 
 Suet 
 
 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 Coal 
 
 I 
 
 o 
 
 Dripping 
 
 
 
 
 
 6 
 
 Gas 
 
 
 
 8 
 
 3 ozs. tea 
 
 
 
 
 
 3 
 
 Wood 
 
 
 
 3 
 
 2 Ib. sugar 
 
 
 
 4 
 
 Soap, soda 
 
 o 
 
 4* 
 
 2 tins of milk 
 
 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 i quartern flour 
 
 
 
 5 
 
 12 
 
 iij 
 
 Potatoes 
 
 o 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 Greens ... 
 
 
 
 4 
 
 Average per head for food all round the family, 
 lojd. a week, or id. a day. 
 
 About December, 1911, the household allow- 
 ance was raised to 2 is. gd., with occasional grants 
 of is. towards clothes. 
 
 Mr. C., whose house was visited from November, 
 1910, to July, 1911, worked in a pottery. His 
 wages were 22S. He allowed 203. There were 
 four children born, and four alive. 
 
 February 15, 1911. 
 
 Left for Food, 
 
 
 s. 
 
 d. 
 
 
 s. d. 
 
 Rent 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 14 loaves . . 
 
 . 2 II 
 
 Burial insurance 
 
 i 
 
 2 
 
 Meat 
 
 . 2 9 
 
 Coal 
 
 i 
 
 3 
 
 3 Ib. sugar 
 
 . o 6 
 
 Gas 
 
 i 
 
 2 
 
 8 ozs. tea . . 
 
 . o 8 
 
 Soap, soda, etc. 
 
 
 
 5& 
 
 Butter . . 
 
 10 
 
 Wood 
 
 o 
 
 2 
 
 17 Ibs. potatoes 
 
 O IO 
 
 
 
 
 i tin of milk 
 
 O 3 
 
 
 10 
 
 2* 
 
 Pot herbs and 
 
 * 3 
 
 
 
 
 greens 
 i Ib. jam . . 
 
 . o 4 
 . o 4 
 
 
 
 
 2 haddocks 
 
 . o 4 
 
 
 
 
 
 9 9 
 
AMOUNT SPENT A HEAD ON FOOD 135 
 
 Average per head for food all round the family, 
 is. 7Jd. a week, or 2fd. a day. Putting the 
 father's 33. 6d. on one side, the mother and 
 children average is. 5d. a week, or 2jd. a day. 
 
 Mr. D., whose house was visited from June, 
 1910, till July, 1911, was a pottery packer, making 
 253. a week. He allowed 233. There were six 
 children born, and six alive. 
 
 November 7, 1910. 
 
 
 Left for Food, io/6 
 
 s. 
 
 d. 
 
 
 s. 
 
 d. 
 
 Rent 
 
 7 
 
 3 
 
 14 loaves 
 
 
 2 
 
 II 
 
 Burial insurance 
 
 i 
 
 3i 
 
 Meat 
 
 
 2 
 
 8 
 
 Boot club 
 
 
 
 6 
 
 20 Ibs. pot 
 
 atoes 
 
 
 
 10 
 
 Slate club 
 
 
 
 7 
 
 6 ozs. tea 
 
 
 
 
 6 
 
 Gas 
 
 
 
 
 8 
 
 Sugar 
 
 
 
 
 5i 
 
 Coal 
 
 
 I 
 
 5 
 
 Butter 
 
 
 o 
 
 6 
 
 Soap, soda 
 Wood 
 
 
 
 
 
 5 
 
 i 
 
 Jam 
 Vegetables 
 
 
 
 
 
 8 
 
 Coke 
 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 Suet and lard 
 
 
 
 2l 
 
 Lamp oil 
 Blacking 
 
 
 
 
 
 o 
 
 of 
 
 Vinegar, poppc 
 and salt 
 
 o 
 
 If 
 
 
 
 
 i tin of milk 
 
 
 
 3 
 
 
 
 12 
 
 5* 
 
 Flour 
 
 
 
 o 
 
 5 
 
 
 
 Cheese . 
 
 . 
 
 
 
 4 
 
 
 
 Haddock 
 
 
 o 
 
 4 
 
 
 /;i 
 
 Average per head for food all round the family, 
 is. 3fd. a week, or 2jd. a day. 
 
 Putting the father's 35. 6d. on one side, the 
 mother and children average is. a week, or i-f d. 
 a day. 
 
 Mr. E., whose house was visited from June, 
 1910, to October, 1912, was a painter's labourer, 
 who never would tell his wife what he made. She 
 had 223. a week in summer-time, and what he 
 
136 AMOUNT SPENT A HEAD ON FOOD 
 
 could give her in winter; never less than 2os. 
 when in work. The eldest girl had just got into 
 a soda-water factory, and was allowing 45. a week. 
 Owing to a period of almost entire unemployment 
 in the previous winter 3 45. was still owing for 
 rent when the visits began. There were seven 
 children alive, three dead. One son had left 
 home. 
 
 December 7, 1910. 
 
 s. d 
 Rent (of which 2S. 
 
 is back payment) 10 o 
 Boot club 
 Burial insurance 
 Mangling . . 
 Coal 
 Gas 
 Wood 
 Soap, soda 
 Linseed meal 
 Pinafore and bon 
 
 o 6 
 
 o 7 
 
 2 
 
 1 4 
 o 9 
 o i 
 o 4 
 o I 
 
 Left for Food, n/6. 
 
 
 s. 
 
 d. 
 
 20 loaves . . 
 
 4 
 
 2 
 
 Meat 
 
 2 
 
 IO;- 
 
 2 tins of milk 
 
 
 
 6 
 
 Sugar 
 
 o 
 
 4 
 
 Margarine 
 
 i 
 
 
 
 Potatoes . . 
 
 
 
 9 
 
 Tea 
 
 o 
 
 8 
 
 Fish 
 
 o 
 
 4l 
 
 Vegetables 
 Pepper, salt 
 
 
 
 
 6 
 I 
 
 Jam 
 
 
 
 3 
 
 ii 
 
 6 
 
 08 
 
 14 6 
 
 Average per head for food all round the family, 
 is. 3}d. a week, or 2d. a day. Putting the father's 
 35. 6d. on one side, the mother and children average 
 is. if d. a week, or nearly 2d. a day. 
 
 To take now groups of men in the same trade 
 without giving the budget of each in detail will 
 give a more general idea. Eight carmen form 
 the first group. Their wages are extraordinarily 
 dissimilar. They, at the time their budgets passed 
 into the hands of the investigation, were working 
 for private firms, for L.C.C. contractors, and Post- 
 
AMOUNT SPENT A HEAD ON FOOD 137 
 
 Office contractors on every kind of terms. Paid 
 by the day or by the week, they were on night 
 work or day work, driving one horse or two, con- 
 tinuously at work, or with long stretches of 
 waiting in a yard with no shelter. One Postal 
 van driver, who was a night worker, drove all 
 Derby Day in between two of his nights, and got 
 is. 6d. overtime for it. The case of the carman in 
 a big West End private firm who got two days 
 a week has been already mentioned. 
 The cases are as follows : 
 
 1. Wage, 263. Allowance, 233. 6d. 6 children; 
 
 none dead. 
 Rent, 53. 6d. 2 tiny rooms. Clothing as 
 
 wanted. No burial insurance. 
 Average left for food on 6 weeks' full pay 
 
 143. 5d., or is. gjd. per head a week, 3d. a 
 
 day: man, 35. 6d.; mother and children, 
 
 is. 6|d. a week, or 2|d. a day. 
 The week that 43. had to be spent on new 
 
 boots these figures became for mother and 
 
 children nfd. a week, or i|-d. a day. 
 
 2. Wage, 255. Allowance, 213.; girl's wage, 
 
 43.; total, 253. 7 children alive, i dead, 
 
 i away. 
 Rent, 73. 2 rooms. Clothing as wanted No 
 
 burial insurance. 
 Average left for food, 123. 4J-d., or is. 6Jd- 
 
 per head a week: man, 33. 6d.; mother and 
 
 children, is. 3^-i. a week, or 2fd. a day. 
 
138 AMOUNT SPENT A HEAD ON FOOD 
 
 3. Wage, 245. Allowance, 22s. 3 children alive, 
 
 i dead. 
 Rent for 3 rooms, 75. Clothing, 6d. Burial 
 
 insurance, 8d. 
 Left for food, 93. 4d., or is. lojd. per head a 
 
 week, 3 Jd. a day : man, 33. 6d. a week ; mother 
 
 and children, is. 5d. a week, or 2jd. a day. 
 
 4. Wage, 243. gd. Allowance, 243. 4 children 
 
 alive, i dead. 
 Rent, 8s. Clothing, 2S. 2d. Burial insurance, 
 
 lod. 
 Average left for food, los. 2jd., or is. 8d. per 
 
 head a week, or almost 3d. a day : man, 
 
 33. 6d. ; mother and children nearly is. 4d. 
 
 a week, or 2j-d. a day. 
 
 5. Wage, 2os. Allowance, 193. 4 children; 
 
 none dead. 
 Rent, 43. 6d. for one room. No regular clothing. 
 
 Burial insurance, 3^d. 
 Average left for food, 93. njd., or is. 7f d. per 
 
 head a week, less than 3d. a day: man, 
 
 33. 6d.; mother and children, nearly is. 4d. 
 
 a week, or 2jd. a day. 
 
 6. Wage, 2os. Allowance, i8s. 4 children alive; 
 
 5 dead. 
 Rent (2 rooms), 43. 6d. Clothing, is. 6d. Burial 
 
 insurance, 8d. 
 Average left for food 8s. 9d., or is. 5^d. per 
 
 head a week, 2^-d. a day: man, 33. 6d.; 
 
 mother and children, is. ofd. per head a 
 
 week, less than 2d. a day. 
 
AMOUNT SPENT A HEAD ON FOOD 139 
 
 Two cases where the weekly wage was less than 
 i8s., owing to the men taking temporary work in 
 unemployment : 
 
 7. Wage, 155. Allowance, I2S. 6d. 2 children 
 
 alive, 2 dead. 
 
 Rent, 33. gd. (i room). No regular clothing. 
 No burial insurance. Has since insured. 
 
 Average left for food 43. gd., or is. 2^d. per 
 head a week, 2d. a day: man could not have 
 his 33. 6d. a week here, as that would leave 
 only is. 3d. a week between mother and 
 children. He probably manages on 2s., 
 leaving 2s. gd. for mother and two children. 
 
 8. Wage, los. Allowance, 8s. 6d. i child. 
 Rent, 33. 6d. (i room). No regular clothing. 
 
 No burial insurance. Has since insured. 
 Average left for food 33. iod., or is. 3jd. per 
 head a week, 2jd. a day: here again the 
 man cannot take his 33. 6d. a week, but 
 probably manages on about 2s., leaving 
 is. iod. a week for nursing mother. 
 
 The general average for the 8 women and 
 30 living children is is. 2f d. per head a week, or 
 2d. a day. Ten children have died, and i 
 has left home, making the total of children 
 born 41. 
 
 Another group is 3 printers' labourers, where 
 the average for 3 women and 18 living children 
 is loj-d. a week, or ijd. a day. Only 2 children 
 have died in this group, making the total 20. 
 
140 AMOUNT SPENT A HEAD ON FOOD 
 
 The average for the families of 2 horse-keepers 
 is is. 4d. per week, or 2jd. a day. There are 9 
 children living, 2 have died. 
 
 Three plumbers' and painters' labourers form 
 another group, where 3 women and 15 living 
 children average is. i^d. a week, or almost 2d. a 
 day. In this group 7 children have died, making 
 a total of 22. 
 
 In the families of 2 potters' labourers, out of 
 10 children none have died. The 2 women and 
 10 children average is. id per week, or nearly 
 2d. a day. 
 
 Two theatre hands out of 14 children have lost 
 6, and the 2 women and 8 living children average 
 is. 3^d. a week, or 2 Jd. a day. 
 
 The average for all the women and children 
 within the investigation is is. 5^d. per head a 
 week, or 2|d. per head a day. 
 
 This average is worked out under the sup- 
 position that the man has a uniform expenditure 
 on his food of 33. 6d. a week, or 6d. a day, except 
 in about six cases, where the total amount left for 
 food was so small that it was obvious that the 
 man had to share more or less with the others, or 
 they could not have lived at all. An average of 
 six weeks was taken in each case, as the amount 
 spent on food varied very much from week to 
 week in some families. When clothes or sickness 
 made an inroad on the budget down went the 
 food. 
 
 Here is a case in point : 
 
AMOUNT SPENT A HEAD ON FOOD 141 
 
 Mr. M.: Wage, 255. Allowed 233. Three 
 children. 
 
 April 29. 1910 
 
 . 
 
 
 May 5, 1910. 
 
 
 
 s. 
 
 d. 
 
 s. 
 
 d. 
 
 Rent 
 
 6 
 
 6 
 
 Rent . 6 
 
 6 
 
 Coal 
 
 
 
 9 
 
 Coal 
 
 . 
 
 
 
 
 9 
 
 Wood and oil 
 
 
 
 6* 
 
 Doctor 
 
 . 
 
 
 I 
 
 
 
 Club 
 
 
 
 3 
 
 Nurse 
 
 
 
 5 
 
 
 
 Soap, soda 
 
 o 
 
 4i 
 
 Club 
 
 . 
 
 
 
 
 3 
 
 Boy's knickers . . 
 
 
 
 8| 
 
 Burial insurance 
 
 
 o 
 
 10 
 
 Burial insurance . . 
 
 
 
 10 
 
 Soap, soda 
 
 
 
 
 4* 
 
 Left for food, 13/0$, 
 which means 9/6 be- 
 tween the mother and 
 children, or 2/4^ per week, 
 or 4<tf. a day. 
 
 14 8* 
 
 Left for food, 8/3$, which 
 means 4/9$- between the 
 mother and children, or 
 1/2^ per week, or 2d. a 
 day. 
 
 Another way than that of reducing the food of 
 hungry children is to pawn clothing when some 
 expense must be met. 
 
 Mr. R.: Wage, 253.; allows 2is.; six children. 
 Daughter (partially fed at service): Wage, 45.; 
 allows 45. Total income, 293. Total allowance, 
 253. 
 
 The daughter was told by her mistress where 
 she was in daily service that she must come in 
 better boots. The average amount left for food 
 was us. 3d. for the whole family of man, wife, and 
 the five children fed at home, which means is. 7^d. 
 per head a week all round the family. Taking the 
 usual 33. 6d. for the man's food, there is left 75. gd. 
 for the mother and children, which means is. 3jd. 
 each per week, or 2jd. per day. The food 
 
142 AMOUNT SPENT A HEAD ON FOOD 
 
 allowance being already as low as seemed safe to 
 go, rent being payable to a personal friend who 
 was in difficulties herself, the pawnshop was 
 chosen as the way out. 
 
 The statement of income given above was 
 altered as follows : 
 
 Mr. R 
 
 S 
 
 Made a parcel own boots 
 Tommy's boots 
 
 While expenses other than food ran 
 
 Rent . . 
 Gas .. 
 Coal .. 
 Soap, soda 
 Boots for S. 
 
 21 
 
 4 
 
 2 
 
 2 
 
 d. 
 o 
 o 
 o 
 6 
 
 29 6 
 
 d. 
 o 
 6 
 i* 
 
 2 
 
 6 
 
 17 3i 
 
 Which leaves for food all round the family, 
 I2S. 2jd., or an average of nearly is. gd. per head 
 a week. The average for mother and children is 
 almost is. 5jd., or 2jd. a day. The sum of 43. 6d. 
 which was received for the boots appears later as 
 " 43. 8d. for boots out of pawn " in the expenditure 
 of maternity benefit. 
 
 The sum of 33. 6d. which is deducted for the 
 bread-winner's food before calculating the average 
 for mother and children is in many instances well 
 below the actual sum spent on the man's food. 
 This amount has been chosen as the very least 
 the women feel themselves justified in spending. 
 
AMOUNT SPENT A HEAD ON FOOD 143 
 
 The cases where men take 33. or 35. 3d. for weekday 
 dinners are those in point. The sum of 43. 6d. or 55. 
 would be nearer the mark by the end of the week, 
 when the man has had his share of the Sunday 
 joint, and his share, with or without " relishes," 
 of the teas and breakfasts. In no single instance 
 did the man seem to be having more than enough 
 or even enough. It was evident, however, that 
 in order to keep one person almost sufficiently 
 fed all the rest in nearly every case had to live 
 permanently on less than 3d. a day. 
 
 It must be remembered by those who are con- 
 vinced that the working man can live well and 
 easily on 3d. a day, because middle-class people 
 have tried the experiment and found it possible, 
 that the well-to-do man who may spend no more 
 than is. gd. a week on food for a month or more has 
 not also all his other expenses cut down to their 
 very lowest limit. The well-to-do man sleeps in 
 a quiet, airy room, with sufficient and sanitary 
 bedding. He has every facility for luxurious 
 bathing and personal cleanliness. He has light 
 and hygienic clothing ; he has warmth in the winter 
 and change of air in the summer. He can rest 
 when he is in; he has good cooking at his com- 
 mand, with a sufficiency of storage, utensils, and 
 fuel. Above all he can always stop living on 
 3d. a day if it does not suit him, or if his family 
 get anxious. When his daughter needs a pair of 
 6s. 6d. boots he does not have to arrange an over- 
 draft with his banker in order to meet the crisis, 
 
144 AMOUNT SPENT A HEAD ON FOOD 
 
 as the poor man does with his pawnbroker. He 
 does not feel that all his family, well or ill, warm 
 or cold, overworked or not, are also bound to live 
 on 3d. a day, and are only too thankful if it does 
 not drop to 2jd. or 2d., or even less, should under- 
 employment or no employment come his way. 
 It is impossible to compare the living on 3d. a 
 day of a person all of whose other requirements 
 are amply and sufficiently satisfied, with the 
 living of people whose every need is thwarted 
 and starved. Food is only half the problem. 
 Air, light, warmth, freedom from damp, sufficient 
 space these, for adults go to make up the other 
 half, and these for young children are even of 
 greater importance than sufficient diet. 
 
 In the households of well-to-do people two 
 kinds of diet can be used one for adults, the 
 other for children. In the household which 
 spends los. or even less on food, only one kind 
 of diet is possible, and that is the man's diet. 
 The children have what is left over. There must 
 be a Sunday joint, or, if that be not possible, at 
 least a Sunday dish of meat, in order to satisfy 
 the father's desire for the kind of food he relishes, 
 and most naturally therefore intends to have. 
 With that will go potatoes and greens. The 
 children share the meat, if old enough, or have 
 potatoes and gravy. For those children too 
 young for cold meat there may be suet pudding ; 
 but probably there is only bread and dripping, 
 and so on and so on, not only through the week, 
 
AMOUNT SPENT A HEAD ON FOOD 145 
 
 but through the months and years. Nursery 
 food is unknown for the children of the poor, who 
 get only the remains of adult food. 
 
 It was reckoned by a young mother of the 
 writer's acquaintance that the cost of special 
 food used for two children in her nursery was 
 los. a week mostly spent on milk, cream, and 
 fruit, items of diet hardly ever seen by children 
 of the poor. 
 
 That the diet of the poorer London children is 
 insufficient, unscientific, and utterly unsatis- 
 factory is horribly true. But that the real cause 
 of this state of things is the ignorance and indiffer- 
 ence of their mothers is untrue. What person or 
 body of people, however educated and expert, 
 could maintain a working man in physical effici- 
 ency and rear healthy children on the amount 
 of money which is all these same mothers have to 
 deal with ? It would be an impossible problem 
 if set to trained and expert people. How much 
 more an impossible problem when set to the 
 saddened, weakened, overburdened wives of 
 London labourers ? 
 
 10 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE POOR AND MARRIAGE 
 
 So many strictures are made on the improvident 
 marriages of the poor that it is necessary to look 
 at the matter from the point of view of the poor 
 themselves. 
 
 If the poor were not improvident, they would 
 hardly dare to live their lives at all. There is no 
 security for them. Any work which they do 
 may stop at a week's notice. Much work may be, 
 and is, stopped with no notice of any kind. The 
 man is paid daily, and one evening he is paid as 
 usual, but told that he will not be needed again. 
 Such a system breeds improvidence; and if casual 
 labour and daily paid labour are necessary to 
 society, then society must excuse the faults which 
 are the obvious outcome of such a system. 
 
 In the case of marriage, as things now are, the 
 moment a man's money approaches a figure 
 which seems to him a possible one he marries. 
 For the first year or even two years he may have 
 less ready money but more comfort. The wife 
 keeps their one room clean and pleasant, and 
 cooks, none too well perhaps, but possibly with 
 more attention to his special needs than his 
 
 146 
 
THE POOR AND MARRIAGE 147 
 
 former landlady did, or than his mother did, who 
 had her own husband as well as her other children 
 to cater for. The wage may be i a week. He 
 gives the wife i8s. and retains 2S. for himself. 
 The result of her management may closely 
 approach the following budget of two actual 
 young people who came within the investiga- 
 tion. 
 
 Mr. W., aged twenty, a toy-packer in City 
 warehouse wages 2os.; allows i8s.. He has 
 been married eighteen months, and when this 
 budget was drawn up a baby was expected any 
 day. His wages were raised from i8s. a year 
 ago. His wife before marriage was a machinist 
 on piece-work, and could earn los. a week. She 
 worked for six months after marriage, and paid 
 for most of the furniture in their one room ; also 
 she provided the coming baby's clothes. She is 
 clean and thrifty, writes a good hand, and keeps 
 excellent accounts. She is nineteen. 
 
 Out of the 2s. retained by the husband, he pays 
 6d. a week into a clothing club, and of course his 
 4d. is deducted for State Insurance. With the rest 
 " he does what he likes." Sometimes he likes to 
 give the wife an extra penny for her housekeeping. 
 The menu, from the list of food purchases given 
 on next page, appears to consist of a sufficiency 
 of bread, of meat, of potatoes, and perhaps of 
 greens, as the husband's dinners eaten away from 
 home probably include greens for him. Some 
 cold meat, with bread and butter and tea, would 
 
148 THE POOR AND MARRIAGE 
 
 be provided for the evening meal ; bread, butter, 
 and tea would be the invariable breakfast. 
 
 Date of budget, January 16, 1913: 
 
 s. d. 
 Rent (one good room upstairs; two 
 
 windows) . . . . . . ..50 
 
 Burial insurance . . . . ..03 
 
 Boot club . . . . . . ..06 
 
 Coal (i cwt. stove coal for foreign 
 stove, which stands out into the 
 room, and will be very dangerous 
 when the baby begins to crawl) . . 13 
 Gas .......... 08 
 
 Soap .......... 03 
 
 Oil .......... 02 
 
 Matches ........ o i 
 
 Left for food . . gs. gjd. 
 
 s. d. 
 Six loaves . . . . . . ..14 
 
 Husband's dinners (he is given 6d. 
 daily by his wife for his dinner, 
 which he eats away from home) 3 o 
 Meat .. .. 
 
 Ib. butter . . 
 i Ib. flour 
 i tin of milk 
 4 ozs. tea 
 i Ib. moist sugar 
 \ Ib. dripping 
 8 Ibs. potatoes 
 4 Ibs. greens 
 
 o 6 
 
 o i 
 
 o 4 
 
 o 4 
 
 O 2 
 
 o 3 
 
 o 4 
 
 O 2 
 
 9 9 
 An average per head of 43. lofd. a week for food 
 
 If the wages never rise, and if the family grows 
 larger, the amounts spent on burial insurance, 
 soap, coal, gas, and, later on, rent will increase, 
 leaving less and less for food, with more people to 
 feed on the less amount. Extra bedding will 
 
THE POOR AND MARRIAGE 149 
 
 eventually have to be bought, though the parents 
 will naturally put off that moment as long as 
 possible. Should the wage rise gradually to 243.. 
 or even 253., it would not all go upon the general 
 living. The man would naturally take a larger 
 amount of pocket-money, and out of the extra 
 sum which he might allow the wife, he would cer- 
 tainly expect better living. A " relish to his tea," 
 costing2d. a day, mounts up to is. a week, and 
 a " rasher to his breakfast " costs the same. So 
 an increase of 23. might be completely swallowed 
 up in extra food for the worker. And it would 
 be really needed by him, as his proportion of the 
 money spent would tend to diminish with more 
 mouths to fill. 
 
 Another instance of a young couple starting on 
 i a week is that of Mr. H., who is twenty- two, 
 and works in a brewery. Every third week he 
 has night work. He allows his wife his whole 
 wage. There is one child of six months. The 
 wife is twenty. She worked in a polish factory 
 until marriage, when she was dismissed, with a 
 small bonus, as the firm does not employ married 
 women. With the bonus she helped to furnish. 
 She is an excellent housewife, and keeps her room 
 comfortable. 
 
 Date of budget, January 16, 1913 (see p. 150). 
 
 Owing to Mr. H. getting home to his meals, 
 there is more elasticity in this menu. Much less 
 meat is eaten, and fish and bacon appear instead. 
 More bread, more tea, more vegetables are eaten, 
 
150 THE POOR AND MARRIAGE 
 
 s. d. 
 Rent (one room, small ; one window, 
 
 upstairs) . . . . . . ..36 
 
 Husband's fares . . . . . . i o 
 
 Husband's pocket-money . . . . i o 
 
 State sickness insurance . . ..04 
 
 Four weeks' burial insurance (Mr. H. 
 had been ill on half pay, and 
 burial insurance had stood over) i o 
 Soap, soda . . . . . . . . o 3^ 
 
 1 cwt. coal . . . . . . i 6 
 
 Gas 06 
 
 Wood . . . . . . ..02 
 
 Newspaper . . . . o i 
 
 Boracic powder . . . . . . o i 
 
 Cotton . . . . . . ..02 
 
 Needles o o| 
 
 Buttons 01 
 
 Paid ofi loan (55. borrowed from a 
 
 brother during husband's illness) i o 
 
 10 9 
 
 This leaves for food, 93. 3d. between three people, of 
 an average of 33. id. a head. 
 
 s. d. 
 9 loaves . . . . . . i io| 
 
 8 ozs. tea . . . . . . ..08 
 
 2 Ibs. moist sugar . . . . ..04 
 
 1 tin of milk (a smaller tin than 
 
 Mrs. W.'s) o 3 
 
 | Ib. butter (slightly better than Mrs. 
 
 W.'s) 07 
 
 2 Ibs. flour 03 
 
 8 Ibs. potatoes 04 
 
 Vegetables . . . . . . ..07 
 
 Salt, mustard, sauce . . ..02^ 
 
 Fruit . . . . . . ..06 
 
 Fish . . . . . . ..10 
 
 Bacon . . . . . . ..04! 
 
 Mineral water (recommended by 
 
 doctor for Mr. H. during his ill- 
 ness) . . . . - ..03 
 Meat . . . . . . ..20 
 
 9 3 
 
THE POOR AND MARRIAGE 151 
 
 and fruit is added. The usual breakfast is bread, 
 butter, and tea; the dinner a small amount of 
 meat, with potatoes and vegetables ; the evening 
 meal, fish or bacon, with potatoes, as well as the 
 eternal bread, butter, and tea. All these four 
 young people are steady and intelligent. They 
 have enough to eat, but they are put to it for 
 proper clothing already. The H.'s will have to 
 move sooner than the W.'s if their family increases, 
 as their room, though a pleasant one, is not above 
 half the size of the other. 
 
 It is obvious that with both these young men 
 marriage is, so far, both pleasant and successful. 
 It is worth the sacrifice in pocket-money which 
 it must entail upon them. Their working life is 
 much the same as it was during their bachelor- 
 hood, while their free time is more comfortable 
 and more interesting. Should they have waited 
 to marry until later in life, they would probably 
 have lived no cheaper as bachelors, though the 
 money would have been spent differently, and they 
 would have been less wholesomely comfortable. 
 
 The young women's lives are far more changed. 
 They tell you that, though they are a bit lonely 
 at times, and miss the companionship of the 
 factory life and the money of their own to spend, 
 and are rather frightened at the swift approach 
 of motherhood, " You get accustomed to it," and 
 " It won't be so lonely when the baby comes," 
 and " He's very handy when he's at home." The 
 first babv is a source of great interest and pleasure 
 
152 THE POOR AND MARRIAGE 
 
 to both parents, especially if it is well managed 
 and does not cry at night, though one young 
 father who was accustomed to a restless baby said 
 he " missed it ter'ble at night " when it was away 
 in hospital. It is different when the children 
 multiply and the room becomes crowded and food 
 is less plentiful. Then the case of the man is hard 
 and unattractive; the amount of self-sacrifice 
 demanded of him, if he be at all tender-hearted 
 towards his family, is outrageous. He must 
 never smoke, he must never take a glass of ale ; he 
 must walk to and from his work in all weathers; 
 he must have no recreations but the continual 
 mending of his children's boots ; he must neither 
 read nor go to picture palaces nor take holidays, 
 if he is to do all that social reformers expect of 
 him when they theoretically parcel out his tiny 
 income. Needless to say, the poorly paid man 
 is not so immeasurably superior to the middle-class 
 man in the matter of self-denial and self-control 
 as he seems expected to be. He does smoke, he 
 does sometimes take a glass of ale; he does, in 
 fact, appropriate a proportion of the money he 
 earns to his own pleasure. It is not a large pro- 
 portion as a rule, but it upsets the nice calcula- 
 tions which are based upon the supposition that 
 a man earning 255. a week spends every penny 
 of it in the support of his family. He is, most 
 probably, a hard-working, steady, sober man; but 
 he may spend perhaps 2d. a day on beer, id. a 
 day on tobacco, and 2d. a day on tram fares, and 
 
THE POOR AND MARRIAGE 153 
 
 that without being a monster of selfishness, or 
 wishing to deprive his children of their food. In 
 most budgets he keeps from 2S. to 2S, 6d. for him- 
 self, in some 55. or 6s., and in some nothing. He 
 varies as his brethren vary in other classes. Some- 
 times he walks to and from work; sometimes he 
 pays his fares out of the money he keeps; and 
 sometimes he gets them paid out of the money 
 with which he supplies his wife. 
 
 Though fond of the children when they are 
 there, this life of stress and strain makes the 
 women dread nothing so much as the conviction 
 that there is to be still another baby with its 
 inevitable consequences more crowding, more 
 illness, more worry, more work, and less food, 
 less strength, less time to manage with. 
 
 There are people who argue that marriage 
 should be put off by the poor until they have 
 saved up enough to secure their economic inde- 
 pendence, and that it would not hurt young men 
 on i a week to put off marriage till they are 
 thirty, they, meantime, saving hard during those 
 ten years. Should the poorly paid workman 
 overcome his young impulse to marry the moment 
 his wage reaches i a week, and should he remain 
 a bachelor until thirty, it is quite certain that he 
 would not marry at all. This may be a good 
 thing or a bad thing, but it would be so. A man 
 who for ten years had had the spending of 203. 
 a week and it is a sum which is soon spent with- 
 out providing luxuries would not, at thirty, 
 
154 THE POOR AND MARRIAGE 
 
 when perhaps cold reason would direct his im- 
 pulse, feel inclined to share his i a week with an 
 uncertain number of other people. His present 
 bent is towards married life. It provides him for 
 the first year or two with attention to his comfort 
 and with privacy and freedom for his personality, 
 as well as satisfying his natural craving for sex- 
 relationship. Should he thwart that impulse, he, 
 being an average, normal man, will have to find 
 other ways of dealing with these desires of his. 
 He is not likely to starve every instinct for ten 
 years in order, perhaps, to save a sum which 
 might bring in an income of a couple of shillings 
 a week to add to his weekly wage. He would 
 know, by the time he was thirty, that even 22S. a 
 week does not guarantee a family against misery 
 and want. The self-sacrifice demanded of the 
 father of even a small family on such an income 
 would appal him. 
 
 The young couple who marry and live con- 
 tentedly on 2os. a week are usually members of 
 families of at least four or five persons, and have 
 struggled through their childhood on their share 
 of an income which may have been anything from 
 2os. to 253. or 26s. a week. Their standard of 
 comfort is disastrously low, and they do not for 
 the first year or two realise that even two or three 
 children will develop into a burden which is too 
 great for their strength. It is not the greater 
 number of children alone : it is the greater cost of 
 accommodating, feeding, and clothing boys and 
 
THE POOR AND MARRIAGE 155 
 
 girls as they get older which increases the strain. 
 Moreover, the separation of interests soon begins 
 to show itself. The husband goes to the same 
 work hard, long, and monotonous but at least 
 a change from the growing discomfort of the home. 
 He gets accustomed to seeing his wife slave, and 
 she gets accustomed to seeing him appear and dis- 
 appear on his daily round of work, which gradu- 
 ally appeals less and less to her imagination, till, 
 at thirty, she hardly knows what his duties are 
 so overwhelmed is she in the flood of her own 
 most absorbing duties and economies. Her 
 economies interfere with his comfort, and are 
 irksome to him ; so he gets out of touch with her 
 point of view. He cannot see why the cooking 
 should be less satisfactory than it used to be, and 
 says so. She knows she needs a new saucepan, 
 but cannot possibly afford to buy one, and says 
 so. He makes his wife the same allowance, and 
 expects the same amount of food. She has more 
 mouths to fill, and grows impatient because he 
 does not understand that, though their first baby 
 did not seem to make much difference, a boy of 
 three, plus a baby, makes the old problem into 
 quite a new one. 
 
 One of her questions is the balance between 
 rent and food, which is of enormous importance. 
 Yet she never can feel certain that she has found 
 the right solution. Shall they all live in one 
 room ? Or shall they take two basement rooms 
 at an equally low rent, but spend more on gas 
 
156 THE POOR AND MARRIAGE 
 
 and coal, and suffer more from damp and cold ? 
 Or shall they take two rooms above stairs and take 
 the extra rent out of the food ? Her own appe- 
 tite may not be very large, so she decides perhaps 
 on the two better rooms upstairs. She may 
 decide wisely, as we think, but the sacrifice in food 
 is not to be ignored in its results on the health of 
 the children. 
 
 Another of her problems is, How is she to keep 
 her husband, the bread-winner, in full efficiency 
 out of the few shillings she can spend on food, and 
 at the same time satisfy the appetites of the 
 children ? She decides to feed him sufficiently 
 and to make what is over do for herself and the 
 children. This is not considered and thought-out 
 self-sacrifice on her part. It is the pressure of 
 circumstances. The wage-earner must be fed. 
 The arrangement made between husband and 
 wife in cases where the man's work is at a dis- 
 tance that 6d. a day, or 33. a week, should be 
 allowed by her for his dinners may have begun, 
 as in the case already quoted, before any children 
 had appeared, and may continue when there are 
 six children. Even if the wage has increased, 
 and if, instead of 20S., the worker is getting 233. 
 or 245., he probably keeps an extra shilling for 
 himself. Instead of allowing his wife i8s. a 
 week, he allows her 2os. or 2 is. If she has 
 several children, the father's weekly 33. for dinner 
 is far harder to compass than when she managed 
 for two only on i8s. Rent, instead of being 
 
THE POOR AND MARRIAGE 157 
 
 from 35. 6d. to 53. for one " good " upstairs room, 
 amounts to from 6s. to 73. for two upstairs 
 rooms, or, if house-room be sacrificed to food, rent 
 may be 53. 6d. for two deadly basement rooms. 
 Insurance has mounted from 3d. a week to gd. a 
 week. Gas which was 6d. is now is., on account 
 of the extra cooking. Soap and other cleaning 
 materials have increased in quantity, and there- 
 fore in expense from 2d. to 5jd. Clothing is a 
 problem for which very few weekly figures are 
 available. It must be covered by payments to 
 clothing and boot clubs, or each article must be 
 bought when needed. In any case the expense 
 is greater and the amount of money available for 
 food grows less. The unvarying amount paid 
 for the bread-winner's necessary daily food 
 becomes a greater proportion of the food bill, and 
 leaves all the increasing deficit to be met out of 
 the food of the mother and children. It is un- 
 avoidable that it should be so; nobody wastes 
 time thinking about it; but the fact that it is so 
 forces the mother to take a different point of 
 view from that of the father. So each of them 
 gradually grows to understand the other less. 
 
 Both parents are probably devoted to the 
 children. The husband, who is sick of his wife's 
 complaints, and can't be bothered with her story 
 of how she has no boots to wear, listens with sym- 
 pathy and understanding to her tale of woe about 
 Tommy having no boots to his feet. The boy 
 who cannot speak at three years of age, or the 
 
158 THE POOR AND MARRIAGE 
 
 girl who is deficient in weight, in height, and in 
 wits, often is the father's special pet, for whcm 
 he will sacrifice both food and sleep, while the 
 mother's whole life is spent in a dreary effort to 
 do her best for them all round. 
 
 Much has been said and written, and much 
 more will be said and written, on the question of 
 the poor and large families. We wrangle as to 
 whether their numerous children are an improvi- 
 dence and an insult to the community, or whether, 
 on the contrary, the poorest class is the only class 
 which, in that respect, does its duty to the nation. 
 One thing is quite certain, and it is that it would 
 be as unthinkable as impossible to bring com- 
 pulsion to bear on the poor because they are poor. 
 For those who deplore large families in the case of 
 poor people, it must be a comfort to remember 
 a fact which experience shews us, that as poverty 
 decreases, and as the standard of comfort rises, 
 so does the size of the family diminish. Should 
 we be able to conquer the problem of poverty, 
 we should automatically solve the problem of the 
 excessively large family. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 MOTHERS' DAYS 
 
 IN a previous chapter some description was given 
 of the way in which the women arrange their work. 
 It is the province of this chapter to describe in 
 greater detail the " days " of several of the 
 women mounting up, as they do gradually from 
 the day of the young mother of one baby to that of 
 the worn woman of thirty-eight with eight children 
 under thirteen. Washing-day was not considered 
 fair by the mothers. They said, " You'd expeck 
 ter be a bit done-like washin'-day; " so an ordi- 
 nary day was chosen in every case. They 
 anxiously explained that the time-table form in 
 which the visitor took the day wasn't fair either 
 because, '" You jest as likely as not get a bit 
 be'ind if 'indered." But the subject was so 
 richly interesting, and led up to such absorbing 
 anecdotes when' left to the mothers' taste in 
 method, that the time-table form had to be used 
 in self -protection by the visitor. The following 
 is a specimen of a mother's way of telling it: 
 " Me young man 'as ter be up abart five. E's a fair 
 whale at sleep. If I didn't wake 'im 'e'd be late 
 all the days in the year: I tell yer. E' come 'oni3 
 
i6o MOTHERS' DAYS 
 
 abart six, 'n soon's 'e's 'ad 'is tea 'e's that sleepy 
 agen you'd 'ardly get a word off 'im." Gently 
 reminded here that it is her own day that is 
 required, she continues: " Oh, me ? Well, I tells 
 yer I wakes 'im at five. I 'as ter give 'im a good 
 thump, an' 'e gets up quiet-like if 'e can; but 'e 
 generly can't, an' then the kids begin talkin', an' 
 I 'as a fair job ter keep 'em in bed. See that one 
 with red 'air 'e's a fair treat in the mornin's," etc. 
 The first day given is that of a young mother 
 aged twenty, with her first baby a fat, round 
 morsel who may be called well cared for after 
 the initial disadvantage of living with its parents 
 in one small and dismal room has been recog- 
 nised. The young mother owns a large sewing- 
 machine, of which she is intolerably proud. As 
 Lambeth mothers' days go, hers is a very easy 
 one. 
 
 6.0. Get up and light fire. 
 6.15. Wake husband, who has to be off by 
 seven; get his breakfast. 
 
 6.30. Give him his breakfast, and while he 
 eats it, nurse baby. 
 
 7 <0 . When he has gone, put baby down and 
 eat breakfast. 
 
 7.30. Wash up; do a little washing every day 
 for baby; airbed; carry down dirty water; bring 
 fresh up from yard (second floor). 
 
 8.30. Baby wakes; give her a bath and dress 
 her; nurse her; let her lie and kick while sweeping 
 room and blacking grate and scrubbing stairs; 
 
MOTHERS' DAYS 161 
 
 make bed; carry baby out, and do shopping for 
 dinner. 
 
 ii. o. Come in and nurse baby; get dinner 
 ready. 
 
 12.15. Husband comes in; give him dinner. 
 He leaves a few minutes to one o'clock. 
 
 i.o. Wash up, and nurse baby ; take her out for 
 a walk, if fine, for as long as can bear it. She 
 is heavy. Come in when time to nurse her again, 
 and sit down to sew. Make all her clothes and 
 most of own, and mend husband's. 
 
 4.30. Get tea ready and cook relish. 
 
 5.0. Husband comes in; give him tea, and help 
 him clean himself in warm water; wash up and 
 carry down dirty water, and bring up clean water. 
 
 6.0. Nurse baby and get her to bed; husband 
 not strong, and likes to go to bed early; sit and 
 sew till time to nurse baby at nine o'clock. Get 
 everything ready for morning. 
 
 9.30. Go to bed. 
 
 One week in every three the husband works at 
 night, instead of the day. The wife finds this less 
 convenient for her, and is certain that it over- 
 strains him, as he cannot sleep properly in the 
 day, though she tries to be as quiet as ever she 
 can. But the baby is bound to disturb him, as 
 the room is very small. During this week, dinner 
 is whenever he gets up, and all the cleaning and 
 washing has to be squeezed in afterwards. 
 
 The next case is that of Mrs. O. ; who has but 
 
 two children alive, both very young. Two rooms 
 
 ii 
 
162 MOTHERS' DAYS 
 
 have to be looked after, and extremely well looked 
 after, for Mr. O. is the gentleman who keeps 55. 
 a week out of 255., and expects 45. 4d. a week 
 spent on his own extra food . He likes the place nice, 
 and cannot see that his wife need ever go out 
 except for the purpose of buying the family food. 
 He believes that women are prone to extravagance 
 in dress, and does not encourage Mrs. O. in any 
 such nonsense. When it was necessary that she 
 should come once a fortnight to the weighing 
 centre, to have the baby weighed, the price of a 
 pair of boots had to be saved out of several weeks' 
 food, much to the annoyance of Mr. O., who could 
 not understand why any of his family should ever 
 leave the two rooms where they live. 
 
 Her day runs as follows : 
 
 7.0. Get up and get husband's breakfast ; nurse 
 baby while he has it. 
 
 7.30. He goes to work. Get little girl dressed 
 get her breakfast, and have it with her. 
 
 8.0. Wash up. 
 
 8.30. Get baby's bath and wash and dress 
 him. 
 
 9.0. Nurse him and put him to sleep. 
 
 9.30. Do beds and sweep bedroom, and carry 
 up water (first floor). 
 
 n.o. Start to make little girl a frock till baby 
 wakes ; nurse him when he does. 
 
 12.15. Get dinner for self and child ready 
 (husband has dinner away from home). 
 
 i.o. Have dinner. 
 
MOTHERS' DAYS 163 
 
 1.30. Nurse baby and clear away and wash 
 up dinner things. Sweep and scrub floor and 
 passage, clean grate; every other week do stairs. 
 
 2.30. Wash myself and little girl, and take 
 children out till four. 
 
 4.0. Get tea and nurse baby. 
 
 4.30. Clear away, and get husband's tea; wait 
 for him till he comes in; very uncertain, between 
 five and seven o'clock; go on making frock till he 
 does. 
 
 6.0. Put children to bed. 
 
 6.30. Wash up husband's tea things, if he has 
 finished. As soon as he has finished, he changes 
 and goes out. 
 
 8.0. Go up The Walk for shopping for next 
 day, leaving children in bed. 
 
 9.0. Mend husband's clothes, and go on with 
 frock till ten. 
 
 10.0. Nurse baby and make both children 
 comfortable for the night. 
 
 n.o. If husband has come in, go to bed. 
 
 This is not a hard day as things go in Lambeth. 
 The noticeable thing about it is its loneliness. 
 Mrs. O. knows nothing of her neighbours, and, 
 until the visitor insisted on the children's getting 
 out every afternoon, and agitated for the boots, 
 Mrs. O. never took them out. She did her shop- 
 ping at night in order that her old slippers might 
 not be seen. She sat indoors and mended and 
 made clothes in her neat room, while her pale 
 little girl amused herself as best she could and 
 
164 MOTHERS' DAYS 
 
 the baby lay on the bed. The husband merely 
 ate and slept at home. He was a particularly 
 respectable and steady man, who kept his clothes 
 neat and his person scrupulously clean. His 
 wife ministered to him in every way she could, 
 but saw nothing of him. He took no interest in 
 the little daughter, but was proud of the boy, 
 and it was by means of the boy's need of fresh air 
 that he was persuaded to allow his wife to save for 
 her boots. For her he did not consider them 
 necessary, as he was in favour of women staying 
 at home and minding the house. 
 
 The next day is that of a woman who lives in 
 one room in buildings, with her husband and four 
 children. She is rather self-assertive and talka- 
 tive, very clean, rougher in her manner of speaking 
 to her children than most of the mothers, but very 
 affectionate to both children and husband. Her 
 old mother, whom she partially feeds, is a great 
 deal with her, and helps in the household work. 
 Her day is rather an easy one for Lambeth. The 
 eldest child is eight years old, and the baby is a 
 few months. As the room is in " buildings," she 
 has water on the same level, so has not to carry 
 it up or down stairs. 
 
 4.30. Wake husband, who has to be at work 
 about five o'clock. He is carman for an L.C.C. 
 contractor. Get him off if possible without 
 waking the four children. He has a cup of tea 
 before going, but breakfasts away from home. 
 If baby wakes, nurse him. 
 
MOTHERS' DAYS 165 
 
 7.0. Nurse baby. 
 
 7.15. Get up and light fire, wake children, 
 wash two eldest ones. Get breakfast for self and 
 children. 
 
 8.0. Breakfast. 
 
 8.30. Tidy two children for school and start 
 them off at 8.45. 
 
 9.0. Clear away and wash up ; wash and dress 
 boy of three; bathe and dress baby. 
 
 10.0. Nurse baby and put him to bed. 
 
 10.30. Turn down beds, clean grate, scrub floor. 
 
 11.30. Make beds. 
 
 12.0. Mother, who has done the marketing, 
 brings in the food; begin to cook dinner. 
 
 12.15. Children all in, lay dinner, and, with 
 mother's help, tidy children for it. 
 
 i.o. Dinner, which mother serves while Mrs. 
 G. nurses baby who wakes about then. 
 
 1.30. Tidy children for school again. 
 
 1.45. Start them off and sit down with mother 
 to their own dinner; wash up, tidy room, clean 
 themselves. 
 
 3.0. Go out, if it is not washing-day or 
 day for doing the stairs, with baby and boy of 
 three. 
 
 3.45. Come in and get tea for children. Put 
 boy of three to sleep, nurse baby. 
 
 4.15. Children come in. 
 
 4.30. Give children tea. 
 
 5.0. Wash up and tidy room. Tidy children 
 and self. 
 
166 MOTHERS' DAYS 
 
 6.0. Take up boy of three and go out for a 
 " blow in the street " with all four children. 
 
 7.0. Come in and put children to bed. Nurse 
 baby. 
 
 7.30. Husband returns; get his supper. 
 
 8.0. Sit down and have supper with him. 
 
 8.30. Clear away and wash up. Sew while 
 husband goes to bed. " Talk wile 'e's doin' it." 
 
 9.0. Send mother off. Get everything ready 
 for the morning. Mend husband's clothes as 
 soon as he gets them off. 
 
 10.0. Nurse baby and go to bed. 
 
 We now come to the day of a mother of six 
 children, with two rooms to keep. Mrs. T., whose 
 menu has already been given, is the wife of a 
 builder's handy-man on 255. a week. The two 
 rooms are upstairs in a small house, and, as there 
 is no water above the ground floor, Mrs. T. has a 
 good deal of carrying of heavy pails of water 
 both upstairs and down. She is gentle and big 
 and slow, never lifts her voice or gets angry, but 
 seems always tired and dragged. She is very 
 clean and orderly. Her husband is away all 
 day; but he dislikes the noise of a family meal, 
 and insists on having both breakfast and tea 
 cooked specially for himself, and eats alone. 
 6.0. Nurses baby. 
 
 6.30. Gets up, calls five children, puts kettle 
 on, washes " necks " and " backs " of all the 
 children, dresses the little ones, does hair of three 
 girls. 
 
MOTHERS' DAYS 167 
 
 7.30. Gets husband's breakfast, cooks bloater, 
 and makes tea. 
 
 8.0. Gives him breakfast alone, nurses baby 
 while he has it, and cuts slices of bread and 
 dripping for children. 
 
 8.30. He goes, gives children breakfast, sends 
 them off to school at 8.50, and has her own. 
 
 9.0. Clears away and washes up breakfast 
 things. 
 
 9.30. Carries down slops, and carries up water 
 from the yard; makes beds. 
 
 10.0. Washes and dresses baby, nurses him, 
 and puts him to bed. 
 
 1 1. o. Sweeps out bedroom, scrubs stairs and 
 passage. 
 
 12.0. Goes out and buys food for the day. 
 Children home at 12.15. 
 
 12.30. Cooks dinner; lays it. 
 
 i.o. Gives children dinner and nurses baby. 
 
 1.45. Washes hands and faces, and sees chil- 
 dren off to school. 
 
 2.0. Washes up dinner things, scrubs out 
 kitchen, cleans grate, empties dirty water, and 
 fetches more clean from yard. 
 
 3.0. Nurses baby. 
 
 3.30. Cleans herself and begins to mend 
 clothes. 
 
 4.15. Children all back. 
 
 4.30. Gives them tea. 
 
 5.0. Clears away and washes up, nurses the 
 baby, and mends clothes till 6.30. 
 
168 MOTHERS' DAYS 
 
 6.30. Cooks husband's tea. 
 
 7.0. Gives husband tea alone. 
 
 7.30. Puts younger children to bed. 
 
 8.0. Tidies up, washes husband's tea things, 
 sweeps kitchen, and mends clothes, nurses baby, 
 puts elder children to bed. 
 
 8.45. Gets husband's supper; mends clothes. 
 
 10.0. Nurses baby, and makes him comfort- 
 able for the night. 
 
 10.30. Goes to bed. 
 
 The last " day " is that of the woman who has 
 eight children under thirteen. The fact that her 
 husband works at night enables the family to sleep 
 seven in one room the mother and five children 
 by night and the husband by day; in the other 
 bedroom three older children sleep in a single 
 bed. This woman is tall and would be good- 
 looking if her figure were not much misshapen. 
 She has quantities of well- washed hair, and good 
 teeth; but her face is that of a woman of fifty. 
 She is thirty-eight. She can stand very little 
 advice or argument, and simply does not listen 
 when either are offered to her. She seems always 
 to be hearing a baby wake, or correcting a child 
 of two, or attending to the soiled face of the little 
 girl of three and a half, who is so much smaller 
 than her younger brother. She once went for a 
 fortnight's change to the seaside. The visitor 
 asked her, when she came back, what she had most 
 enjoyed. She thought for a considerable time, 
 and then made the following statement: " I on'y 
 
MOTHERS' DAYS 169 
 
 'ad two babies along of me, an' wen I come in me 
 dinner was cooked for me." 
 
 There is no doubt that if Mrs. B. were stronger 
 she would not need to nurse her baby quite so 
 often. He is small and hungry, and will soon 
 need to be weaned if his mother is to work as hard 
 as she does on ordinary days ; with extra exertion 
 on washing-days, and extra noise and interruption 
 in holiday-time. 
 
 Mr. B., printer's labourer ; wage 303. ; allows 
 28s. ; night worker. Eight children ; eldest, a 
 girl of twelve years; youngest, three months. 
 
 6.45. Nurses baby. 
 
 7.0. Rises, calls children, lights fire and puts 
 on kettle, washes and dresses elder four children. 
 Girl of twelve can do for herself. Boy of ten can 
 do all but his ears. 
 
 8.0. Gets breakfast; bread and butter and tea 
 for children. 
 
 8.15. Gives children breakfast; gets them off 
 to school by 8.45. 
 
 8.45. Nurses baby. 
 
 9.0. Fetches down the three babies, washes 
 and dresses them ; gives the two bigger their break- 
 fast. 
 
 9.30. Husband comes home; cooks him rasher 
 or haddock. 
 
 i o.o. Gives him his breakfast, and goes 
 upstairs to tidy her room for husband to sleep 
 in; makes her bed for him, which has been 
 airing since seven o'clock. Turns out and 
 
iyo MOTHERS' DAYS 
 
 airs beds in other room, taking two elder babies 
 with her. 
 
 10.30. Clears away and washes up all the break- 
 fast things. 
 
 ii. o. Nurses baby and puts all three to sleep. 
 
 11.15. Goes out to buy dinner. 
 
 11.30. Prepares dinner. 
 
 12.10. Children all home again; goes on with 
 dinner. 
 
 i.o. Lays and serves dinner. 
 
 1.30. Washes hands and faces of five children, 
 and sends them off to school. 
 
 1.45. Nurses baby, and sits down till 2.30. 
 
 2 .30. Washes up and begins cleaning. Sweeps 
 kitchen, scullery, and passage, scrubs them, cleans 
 grate; three babies to mind all the time. 
 
 4.10. Children all home again; gets their tea, 
 nurses baby. 
 
 4.30. Clears away, and begins to cook hus- 
 band's dinner. 
 
 5.0. Husband wakes; gives him dinner; sits 
 down while she cuts his food for him to take to 
 work, keeping babies and children as quiet as 
 she can. 
 
 6.0. Nurses baby. 
 
 6.30. He starts for work. She makes chil- 
 dren's beds, turns out his, airs his room, and 
 makes his bed up for herself and three children 
 to sleep in at night. All water used in bedrooms 
 has to be carried upstairs, and when used, carried 
 down. 
 
MOTHERS' DAYS 171 
 
 7.30. Washes and puts to bed two babies. 
 
 8.0. Nurses baby. 
 
 8.15. Washes and puts to bed elder children. 
 
 8.45. Mends clothes. 
 
 10.0. Nurses baby and puts him to bed. 
 
 10.30. Goes to bed; nurses baby twice in the 
 night. 
 
 There is no room for the " day " of the mother 
 who bakes her own bread. Her husband, who 
 works for a Post-Office contractor, is on night- 
 duty, and spends most of the day at home. He 
 is an old soldier, as are an appreciable proportion 
 of these low- wage men. He helps his wife in the 
 housework and the cooking, and their home is one 
 of the most spotless the visitor has seen. When 
 his wife was sent to the seaside for two weeks, he 
 managed entirely for himself and the five children. 
 His " day " would have been very valuable could 
 the visitor have persuaded him to make it out for 
 those two weeks. He apologised to her for not 
 making the money go as far as " mother " did, 
 for buying loaves and not baking the bread, for 
 scrubbing without soap, which he had forgotten to 
 buy; but a detailed account of his day he could 
 not give. He was a guardsman when in the army, 
 and stands six feet in his socks. He weighs 
 eleven stone at thirty-six a stone less than when 
 he was serving. Here are the accounts for his 
 two weeks, alongside a budget of his wife's, with 
 which to compare (see p. 173) . He sent them with 
 the folio wing letter: 
 
172 MOTHERS' DAYS 
 
 " MRS. R., 
 
 " Unfortunately I had Rachel at home on 
 the Friday as Mother went away on the Thursday. 
 I could not do on the money ; I had as you 
 will see to borrow 55. as well as putting the 
 whole of my money in the house. The last week 
 I managed better, but had to miss my club. I 
 should have sent the list down to you each week 
 but Mother forgot to ask me to do so." 
 
 The reference to Rachel is that she lost her 
 situation just as his wife left home. He had her 
 food to get as well as the other children's during 
 his fortnight. She is an excellent worker, and got 
 another place as soon as her mother came back. 
 
 The items " ink, pen, nibs, stationery, and 
 stamps " directly mother went away are rather 
 touching. The enormous consumption of mar- 
 garine 35. 6d. as against is. 6d. is an instance of 
 the way in which the father is kept in ignorance of 
 the privations which are undergone by his family. 
 Directly he was left in charge, this father allowed 
 margarine all round on the same scale as he had 
 always used it himself, with the result of more 
 than doubling the amount spent on it. The item 
 in his first week of 2S. 3d. for gas when there was 
 no baking to be done, as against his wife's 2s. 
 when there was, shows that the cwt. of coal did 
 not suffice him, and that he cooked by gas. The 
 savings he made in his second week are most 
 entertaining. No soap or cleaning material of 
 
MOTHERS' DAYS 
 
 173 
 
 o *>^o o o -* 
 
 m vo w n t% O O * O O O <* tt >O O O M O 
 
 I 
 
 . . 
 
 ij^llsl*1 
 
 rt - o o 
 
 O VO 
 
 VONOO 
 
 a 
 s 5P 
 
 us o 
 s ^ 
 
 i-j 
 
 8S 
 
 Illlllils^ I, -ill I 
 
 8 S ">"& s *** 
 
 000*1^0 "^ CTJ 
 
 HOa.>uc^cB 
 
 _: o o 
 
 000 CX M 
 
 i^o VO 
 
 "*1 
 
 o o o o h^ 
 Iw 
 
 p, 
 
 . .S 
 
 .1 
 
 ' a, ' 'tt ' g^ ' 
 
 .S 8f2l.-g 
 
 |.H rt^-^Sg 
 o rt .x S 
 
 
 
174 MOTHERS' DAYS 
 
 any kind, no coal, no matches ; and yet the grate 
 did not look bad nor the floor either when the 
 visitor saw them at the end of his strenuous time. 
 The amount spent on tobacco, his one luxury, is 
 interesting, as it is the sole instance in which 
 this item is accounted for in the budgets. He 
 was obliged to put every penny of his wage into 
 the general fund during those two weeks. The 
 penny for the hospital is a very common payment 
 in Lambeth one which always comes out of the 
 man's private purse. Incidentally, we are able 
 to construct his own private budget of 43. pocket- 
 money out of this budget of his. It must run 
 something like this : 
 
 s. d. 
 National insurance . .04 
 
 Slate club 
 Hospital 
 Tobacco 
 Fares, etc. 
 
 I 2 
 
 I 
 
 1 6 
 
 O II 
 
 That the children of the poor suffer from in- 
 sufficient attention and care is not because the 
 mother is lazy and indifferent to her children's 
 well-being. It is because she has but one pair of 
 hands and but one overburdened brain. She can 
 just get through her day if she does everything 
 she has to do inefficiently. Give her six children, 
 and between the bearing of them and the rearing 
 of them she has little extra vitality left for scien- 
 tific cooking, even if she could afford the neces- 
 sary time and appliances. In fact, one woman is 
 
MOTHERS' DAYS 175 
 
 not equal to the bearing and efficient, proper care 
 of six children. She can make one bed for four 
 of them ; but if she had to make four beds ; if she 
 even had to separate the boys from the girls, and 
 keep two rooms clean instead of one; if she had 
 to make proper clothing and keep those clothes 
 properly washed and ironed and mended; if she 
 had to give each child a daily bath, and had to 
 attend thoroughly to teeth, noses, ears, and eyes ; 
 if she had to cook really nourishing food, with 
 adequate utensils and dishes, and had to wash 
 up these utensils and dishes after every meal 
 she would need not only far more money, but far 
 more help. The children of the poor suffer from 
 want of room, want of light, want of air, want of 
 warmth, want of sufficient and proper food, and 
 want of clothes, because there is not enough to 
 pay for these necessaries. They also suffer from 
 want of cleanliness, want of attention to health 
 want of peace and quiet, because the strength 
 of their mothers is not enough to provide these 
 necessary conditions. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 THE CHILDREN 
 
 IN this investigation forty-two families have been 
 visited. Of these, eight, owing to various reasons, 
 were visited but for a short time. Three were 
 given up after several weeks, because the hus- 
 bands objected to the household accounts being 
 shown to the visitor; and here it would be inter- 
 esting to mention that in three other cases, not 
 reckoned in the investigation, the husbands re- 
 fused after the first week for the same reason as 
 soon as they thoroughly realised the scope of the 
 inquiry. In four cases the babies were born too 
 soon, and lived but a few hours. The investiga- 
 tion was primarily on infantile mortality, so that 
 it automatically ceased with the child's death. 
 One family moved out of London before the child's 
 birth. There remain, therefore, thirty-four babies 
 who were watched and studied by the visitors for 
 many months. In every case but one these 
 children were normal, and thriving at birth. Only 
 one weighed less than 6 Ibs. ; four more weighed 
 less than 7 Ibs.; fifteen more weighed less than 
 8 Ibs. ; ten more weighed less than 9 Ibs. ; and four 
 weighed over 9 Ibs. The average weight at birth 
 176 
 
THE CHILDREN 177 
 
 for the whole number was 7 Ibs. 10 ozs. The 
 child which weighed 5 Ibs. 12 ozs. at birth was 
 always sickly, and died of diarrhoea and sickness 
 during the hot August of 1911 at the age of six 
 months. Her mother was a delicate woman, and 
 had come through a time of dire stress when her 
 husband was out of work for four months before 
 this child was born. A baby born since, which 
 does not appear in this investigation, is now 
 about five months old. Not one of the others 
 seemed otherwise than sound and healthy, and 
 able to thrive on the nourishment which was 
 provided for their special benefit by the investiga- 
 tion. One child, however, a beautiful boy of five 
 months, who weighed 7 Ibs. 12 ozs. at birth, and 
 14 Ibs. 14 ozs. at twenty weeks, died suddenly of 
 bronchitis in December, 1910. His mother's 
 health record was bad. He was the sixth child 
 she had lost out of eleven. She was an extra- 
 ordinarily tidy, clean woman, and an excellent 
 manager ; but her father had died of consumption, 
 and she was one of those mothers who economised 
 in rent in order to feed her flock more adequately. 
 She paid 55. a week for very dark ground-floor 
 rooms. The death of the child was so sudden 
 and unexpected that an inquest was held. The 
 mother was horrified and bewildered at the en- 
 trance of police officers into her home. She wrung 
 her hands and repeated over and over, " I done 
 all I could !" and never shook off the impression 
 that some disgrace attached to her. The burial 
 
 12 
 
178 THE CHILDREN 
 
 insurance money paid by the company was i. 
 Five shillings specially earned by the mother and 
 55. lent by a friend brought up the amount to 
 the necessary 305., and the humble funeral took 
 place. The child was buried in a common grave 
 with seven other coffins of all sizes. 
 
 With these two exceptions, the babies all lived 
 to be over a year. They usually did fairly well, 
 unless some infection from the elder children gave 
 them a bad cold, or measles, or whooping-cough, 
 when some of them had a hard struggle to live, 
 and their convalescence was much retarded by 
 the close air and overcrowding of their unhygienic 
 surroundings. Compared with babies who were 
 fighting such surroundings without special nourish- 
 ment, they did well, but compared with the children 
 of well-to-do people they did badly indeed \ 
 
 The ex-baby, where such a person existed, was 
 nearly always undersized, delicate, and peevish. 
 Apart from such causes as insufficient and im- 
 proper food, crowded sleeping quarters, and 
 wretched clothing, this member of the family 
 specially suffered from want of fresh air. Too 
 young to go out alone, with no one to carry it 
 now the baby had come, it lived in the kitchen, 
 dragging at its mother's skirts, much on its legs, 
 but never in the open air. One of the conveni- 
 ences most needed by poor mothers is a perambu- 
 lator which will hold, if possible, her two youngest 
 children. With such a vehicle, there would be 
 some sort of chance of open air and change of 
 
THE CHILDREN 179 
 
 scene so desperately necessary for the three house- 
 bound members of the family. As it is, the ex- 
 baby is often imprisoned in a high chair, where 
 it cannot fall into the fire, or pull over the water- 
 can, or shut its finger in the crack of the door, 
 or get at the food. But here it is deprived of 
 exercise and freedom of limb, and develops a 
 fretful, thwarted character, which renders it even 
 more open to disease than the rest of the family, 
 though they share with it all the other bad 
 conditions. 
 
 There is no doubt that the healthy infant at 
 birth is less healthy at three months, less healthy 
 still at a year, and often by the time it is old 
 enough to go to school it has developed rickets 
 or lung trouble through entirely preventible 
 causes. 
 
 To take several families individually, and go 
 through their history, may serve as illustration 
 of the way in which children who begin well are 
 worn down by the conditions round them : 
 
 Mr. A., whose house was visited all the year of 
 1909, was originally a footman in one of the 
 houses of a large public school. He seemed at 
 the time of visiting to be fairly strong and wiry. 
 He was about 5 feet 8 inches in height, well 
 educated, and very steady. His wife had been 
 a lady's-maid, who had saved a little money, 
 which she sank in a boarding-house kept by her- 
 self and her sister. The boarding-house did not 
 pay, and when Mrs. A. married, the sister went 
 
i8o THE CHILDREN 
 
 back into the service of the lady with whom she 
 had been before. Mr. A. left his position as foot- 
 man, and became a bus conductor in one of the 
 old horse-bus companies. When visited in 1909 
 he had been fifteen years in his position, but 
 owing to the coming of motor traffic, his employers 
 gradually ran fewer buses, and his work became 
 more casual. He was paid 45. a day, and got 
 four days' work a week, with an occasional fifth 
 day. He had to present himself every morning, 
 and wait a certain time before he knew whether 
 he would be employed or not. All that he made 
 he brought home. His wife, who by the time 
 the visits began was worn and delicate, was a 
 well-educated woman, and an excellent manager. 
 She saved on all the 2os. weeks in order to have 
 a little extra for the i6s. weeks. Her sister in 
 service often came to the rescue when extra 
 trouble, such as illness or complete unemploy- 
 ment, visited the household. There were five 
 children after the baby of the investigation 
 arrived. The eldest, a girl, was consumptive; 
 the next, a boy, was short in one leg, and wore 
 a surgical boot; the next, a girl, was the airless 
 ex-baby, and suffered with its eyes; and only the 
 new-born child, weighing 9 Ibs., seemed to be 
 thriving and strong. The average per week for 
 food was is. a head for man, woman, and children. 
 Presently the conductor's work stopped altogether. 
 No more horse-buses were run on that particular 
 route, and motor-buses did not come that way. 
 
THE CHILDREN 181 
 
 Mr. A. was out of work. He used to bring in odd 
 sums of money earned in all sorts of ways between 
 tramping after a new job. The eldest girl was 
 put into a factory, where she earned 6s. a week; 
 the eldest boy got up early one morning, and 
 offered himself to a dairyman as a boy to leave 
 milk, and got the job, which meant work from 
 6 a.m. till 8 a.m., and two hours after school in the 
 evening. Several hours on Saturday and Sun- 
 day completed the week's work, for which he was 
 paid 2s. 6d. His parents were averse to his doing 
 this, but the boy persisted. The family moved 
 to basement rooms at a cheaper rent, and then 
 the gradual pulling down of the baby began. 
 The mother applied to the school authorities to 
 have the two boys given dinner, and after some 
 difficulty succeeded. The elder boy made no 
 complaint, but the short-legged one could not 
 eat the meals supplied. He said they were 
 greasy, and made him feel sick. He used to come 
 home and ask for a slice of the family bread and 
 dripping. The father's earnings ranged between 
 53. and ios., which brought the family income 
 up to anything from 135. 6d. to i8s. 6d. The 
 food allowance went often as low as 8d. a week. 
 A strain was put upon the health of each child, 
 which reduced its vitality, and gave free play to 
 disease tendencies. The eyes, which had been a 
 weak point in every child, grew worse all round. 
 The consumptive girl was constantly at home 
 through illness, the boy had heavy colds, and the 
 
182 THE CHILDREN 
 
 younger children ailed. Work was at last found 
 by the father at a steady rate of 2os. a week. 
 He took the consumptive girl from her work, and 
 sent her into the country, where she remained in 
 the cottage of a grandparent earning nothing. 
 The boy was induced to give up his work, and the 
 family, when last seen, were living on a food 
 allowance of is. 6d. per head all round the family. 
 The baby was the usual feeble child of her age, 
 the children were no longer fed at school, and the 
 parents were congratulating themselves on their 
 wonderful good fortune. 
 
 Mr. B., whose home was visited part of 1911 
 and all 1912, was a printer's labourer, and brought 
 his wife 28s. a week every week during the in- 
 vestigation. He had been in the army, and 
 fought all through the South African War. He 
 seemed to be a strong man. His wife was one 
 of the few fairly tall women that were visited. 
 She had been strong, but was worn out and very 
 dreary. There were eight children, all under- 
 sized, and increasingly so as they went down the 
 family. The ex-baby was a shrimp of a boy, only 
 eleven months old when the baby another boy 
 was born. The third youngest was a girl, and 
 was so delicate that neither parent had expected 
 to rear her. She weighed less than many a child 
 of a year old when she was two and a half. The 
 chief characteristics of these three youngest 
 children were restlessness, diminutiveness, and 
 a kind of elfin quickness. The baby, which was 
 
THE CHILDREN 183 
 
 a normal child weighing 7 Ibs. at birth, caught 
 the inevitable measles and whooping-cough at 
 four months and six months, and at a year 
 weighed just 15 Ibs. He could say words and 
 scramble about in an extremely active way so 
 much so that his harassed mother had to tie him 
 into the high chair at an earlier age than most 
 children of his class. The eyes of all the children 
 in this family needed daily attention, and showed 
 great weakness. The eldest girl was supplied 
 with spectacles at school, for the payment of 
 which 2d. a week appeared for months in the 
 mother's budgets. There was no specific disease. 
 The children were stunted by sheer force of cir- 
 cumstances, not, so far as could be ascertained, 
 by heredity. The sleeping was extremely crowded, 
 and the food allowance averaged is. 2jd. a week, 
 or 2d. a day for the mother and children. 
 
 A third family is interesting for the reason that 
 the mother firmly believed in enough to eat, and, 
 being a particularly hard-working, clean woman, 
 she could not bear to take dark underground 
 rooms or to squeeze her family of seven children 
 into a couple of rooms. She solved her problem 
 by becoming a tenant of the Duchy of Cornwall 
 estate. She got four tiny rooms for 8s., and kept 
 them spotless. Her husband, who was a painter's 
 labourer and a devoted gardener, kept the tiny 
 strip of yard gay with flowers, and kept the in- 
 terior of the damp, ill-contrived little house fresh 
 with " licks of paint " of motley colours and 
 
184 THE CHILDREN 
 
 patches and odds and ends of a medley of papers. 
 When work was slack, Mrs. C. simply did not pay 
 the rent at all. As she said: " The Prince er 
 Wales, 'e don't want our little bits of sticks, and 
 'e won't sell us up if we keeps the place a credit 
 to 'im." She seemed to be right, for they owed 
 a great deal of rent, and were never threatened 
 with ejection. She explained the principle on 
 which she worked as follows: " Me and my young 
 man we keeps the place nice, and wen Vs in work 
 we pays the rent. Wen Vs out er work in the 
 winter I gets twenty loaves and 2 Ibs. er sixpenny 
 fer the children, and a snack er meat fer 'im, and 
 then I begins ter think about payin' th' agent out 
 er any think I 'as left. I'd be tellin' a lie if I said 
 I didn't owe a bit in the rent-book, and now and 
 agen th' agent gets a shillin' er two extra fer back 
 money, but 'e carn't 'elp seein' 'ow creditable the 
 place is. That piece er blue paper looks a fair 
 treat through the winder, so 'e don't make no 
 fuss." The house they lived in, and many like 
 it, have been demolished, and a number of well- 
 built houses are appearing in their stead. The 
 Lambeth people declare that the rents have gone 
 up, however, and that the displaced tenants will 
 not be able to return, but this rumour has not 
 been inquired into. Wliat happened to the C.'s 
 overdraft when they were obliged to turn out is 
 not known. The children of this family were 
 short and stumpy, but of solid build, and cer- 
 tainly had more vigour and staying-power than 
 
THE CHILDREN 185 
 
 those of the two other families already mentioned 
 in this chapter. The baby flourished. She 
 weighed 7 Ibs. at birth, and at one year she 
 weighed 18 Ibs. 10 ozs. She could drag herself 
 up by a chair, and say many words. The system 
 of feeding first and paying rent afterwards seemed 
 to be justified as far as the children were con- 
 cerned. 
 
 Another woman who lived in " the Duchy," as 
 they all call it, and whose house has since been 
 demolished, had not the temperament which had 
 the courage to owe. She paid her 8s. for rent 
 with clockwork regularity, and fed her husband 
 and four children and herself on a weekly average 
 of 8s. 6 d. a week. The average for herself and the 
 children worked out at is. a week, or less than 
 2d. a day. All four children were very delicate. 
 The baby, who weighed 8| Ibs. at birth, weighed 
 16 Ibs. 8 ozs. at one year. The ex-baby suffered 
 from consumption of the bowels, and was con- 
 stantly in and out of hospital. The two elder 
 children were tuberculous. The father was a 
 printer's labourer, and appeared to be fairly 
 strong, though a small man. The mother was 
 delicate and worn, but seemed to have no specific 
 disease. 
 
 Some of the children in the different families 
 had strong individuality. Emma, aged ten, 
 stood about 4 feet 6 inches in her socks. Four 
 years later, when she began to earn by carrying 
 men's dinners backwards and forwards to them 
 
186 THE CHILDREN 
 
 at work, she measured 4 feet 10 inches. At ten 
 she was a queer little figure, the eldest of six, 
 with a baby always in her arms out of school- 
 hours. She was not highly intelligent, but had 
 a soothing way with children. Her short neck 
 and large face gave the impression of something 
 dwarf-like. But she was sturdy and tough to all 
 appearance, and could scrub a floor or wring 
 out a tubful of clothes in a masterly way. She 
 had a dog-like devotion for a half deaf, half 
 blind little mother, who nevertheless managed 
 to keep two rooms, a husband, and six children 
 in a state of extraordinary order, considering all 
 things. When Emma's school shoes were worn 
 out, her mother took them over and wore them 
 till there was no sole left, and Emma was pro- 
 vided with a " new" fifth-hand pair, which were 
 generally twice too big. Emma's mother found 
 her a great comfort, and very reluctantly sent 
 her to work in a factory at the age of fifteen. 
 There she earned 6s. a week, and became the 
 family bread-winner during the frequent illnesses 
 of her father. 
 
 Lulu was ex-baby to the deserted wife, and 
 was three years old when her mother was visited. 
 She was a lovely child with brilliant dark eyes and 
 an olive skin. She had round cheeks, which never 
 seemed to lose their contour, though their poor 
 little owner spent many weary weeks in hospital 
 after four different operations for a disease which 
 the visitor only knew by the name of " inter- 
 
THE CHILDREN 187 
 
 sections," pronounced by Lulu's mother with 
 awe and respect. Lulu would be playing, and 
 suddenly she would be seized with violent pain 
 and be hurried off in her mother's arms to the 
 hospital. The visitor was present on one of 
 these occasions, when it seemed as though the 
 whole street knew exactly what to do. One 
 neighbour accompanied the mother and child, 
 one took over the baby, another arranged with 
 a nod and a word to take the mother's place at 
 work that afternoon, and in two minutes every- 
 thing was settled. Lulu came out of hospital 
 four weeks later, with pale but still round cheeks 
 and a questioning look in her eyes which gave a 
 pathetic touch to the baby face. She still lives 
 the very idol of her mother to whom the two 
 boys are as nothing in comparison. 
 
 Dorothy, a person of two and another ex-baby, 
 was devoured with a desire to accompany her 
 elder brothers and sisters to school. She was a 
 fair, thin child, with bright blue-grey eyes and 
 straight, wispy tow-coloured hair. Her tiny 
 body was seething with restlessness and activity. 
 She spent her days in a high chair, from which 
 place she twice a day shrieked and wailed a 
 protest when the elder, happier ones started 
 for school. She was quick as a needle, and could 
 spend hours " writing pictures " on a piece of 
 paper with a hard, scratchy lead pencil. She had 
 no appetite, and had to be coaxed to eat by prom- 
 ises, rarely fulfilled, of taking her for a walk as 
 
i88 THE CHILDREN 
 
 soon as mother's work was done. She slept in 
 the chair during the day, as her mother declared 
 it was not safe to have her up stairs on the bed 
 or she would be out the window or down the 
 stairs directly she woke. She simply hated the 
 baby, another girl, which had condemned her to 
 second place and comparative neglect. At three, 
 she was kindly allowed a place in a school near 
 by, and her health visibly improved from that 
 moment. She became almost pretty. 
 
 'Erbie was of an inquiring turn, and during 
 fifteen months' visiting had at different times 
 managed to mangle his thumb, fall into the mud 
 of the river at low tide, and get lost for ten hours, 
 and be returned by the police. He was exces- 
 sively sorry for himself, on each occasion, while 
 his diminutive mother took the catastrophies 
 with infinite calm. He was eight years old and 
 a " good scholar." Physically he was a small 
 nondescript person, thin, and fair, and colourless, 
 with neat features and a shrill voice, which pene- 
 trated into the core of the brain. 
 
 Joey had a tragedy attached to him, which 
 clouded a portion of his days. He was guilty of 
 telling a " boomer " to his parents. He said 
 that he had been moved out of the infant school 
 into the boys' school when he hadn't. One day 
 his mother accompanied him to the school gate 
 because it was raining, and she was protecting 
 him with the family umbrella. Then the horrid 
 truth was discovered, as the entrance for boys 
 
THE CHILDREN 189 
 
 is in a different street to that for infants. Joey 
 urgently declared that he had only been " kid- 
 ding " his parents, and that when they were so 
 wildly delighted and took his news so seriously 
 he had not had the courage to tell them it was 
 " kidding." The net result was gloom and 
 disgrace, which floated round Joey's miserable 
 head for many days. In the middle of this awful 
 time he was moved, and the strained atmosphere 
 was consequently relieved. He distinguished him- 
 self in his new class, however, by his answer to a 
 question his teacher put to him as to the origin of 
 Christmas Day. " You get a bigger bit of meat 
 on yer plate than ever you seen before," he 
 replied, and after a pause he added, " and w'en 
 'E dies you gets a bun." The teacher had called 
 round to complain of this way of looking at 
 things, and Joey was in deep disgrace again. He 
 was a nice, chubby thing, with earnest ways and 
 some imagination. His " boomer " preyed on 
 him, and made him thin and anxious till the 
 climax was over. The second offence worried 
 him not at all. He was the pride and delight of 
 two very simple and devoted parents. His two 
 little sisters, both younger than himself, were 
 extremely attached to him. 
 
 Benny was twelve and very, very serious. He 
 was the boy who, without telling a soul of his plan, 
 offered himself to the milkman as a boy who would 
 leave milk on doorsteps. He earned 2s. 6d. a week 
 for the job, and faithfully performed the duties for 
 
igo THE CHILDREN 
 
 some weeks, till a man who kept a vegetable shop 
 offered him the same money for hours which 
 suited him better, and he changed his trade. 
 He was a very small boy for his age, and had a 
 grave, thin face with inflamed eyes. An over- 
 coat, presented because the visitor could not 
 bear to think of his doing his round in the rain 
 and sitting all day at school afterwards in his 
 wet clothes gave him the keenest flash of plea- 
 sure he had ever felt. He turned scarlet and 
 then went white. He had a resolute mouth and 
 a quiet voice and no constitution. 
 
 There is one little picture which must be de- 
 scribed, though the child and its mother were 
 unknown. The visitor in Lambeth Walk met a 
 thin, decent woman carrying a pot of mignonette. 
 By her side, a boy about seven years old was 
 hopping along with a crutch under one arm. 
 His other arm encircled a pot in which was a 
 lovely blooming fuchsia, whose flowers swung to 
 his movements. The woman was looking straight 
 ahead with grave, preoccupied eyes, not heeding 
 the child. His whole expression was one of such 
 glorified beatitude that the onlooker, arrested by 
 it, could only feel a pang of sharpest envy. They 
 went on their way with their flowers, and round 
 the next corner the visitor had to struggle through 
 a deeply interested crowd, who were watching a 
 man being taken to prison. 
 
 Questions are often asked as to how these 
 children amuse themselves. They are popularly 
 
THE CHILDREN 191 
 
 supposed to spend their time at picture palaces. 
 As far as close observation could discover, they 
 seemed to spend their play-time the boys 
 shrilly shouting and running in the streets, and 
 the girls minding the baby and looking on. They 
 played a kind of hop-scotch marked out in chalk, 
 which reminded the visitor of a game much be- 
 loved by her in extreme youth. Boys whose 
 parents were able to afford the luxury seemed to 
 spend hours on one roller skate, and seemed to do 
 positive marvels when the nature of the roadway 
 and the nature of the skate are considered. Girls 
 sometimes pooled their babies and did a little 
 skipping, shouting severe orders as they did so 
 to the unhappy infants. One party of soldiers, 
 whose uniform was a piece of white tape round 
 the arm and a piece of stick held over the shoulder 
 as a weapon, marched up and down a narrow 
 street for hours on the first day of the August 
 holidays, making such a noise of battle and 
 sudden death that the long -suffering mothers 
 inside the houses occasionally left their work to 
 scream to them to be quiet. The pathways 
 were full of hatless girls and babies, who looked 
 on with interest and envy. Needless to state, 
 no notice was taken of the mothers' remonstrance. 
 The best game of all is an ambulance, but that 
 needs properties, which take some finding. A 
 box on wheels, primarily intended for a baby's 
 perambulator, and with the baby inside, makes 
 a wonderful sort of toboggan along the paved 
 
IQ2 THE CHILDREN 
 
 path. The boy sits on one corner and holds 
 with both hands on to the edges, the baby occu- 
 pies the centre, and off they go, propelled by 
 vigorous kicks. 
 
 In holiday-time elder brothers or sisters some- 
 times organise a party to Kennington Park or 
 one of the open spaces near by, and the grass 
 becomes a shrieking mass of children, from twelve 
 or thirteen years of age downwards. The weary 
 mother gives them bread and margarine in a 
 piece of newspaper, and there is always a foun- 
 tain from which they can drink. When they 
 come home in the evening, something more solid 
 is added to their usual tea. On Bank Holiday 
 these children are taken by their parents to the 
 nearest park. The father strolls off, the mother 
 and children sit on the grass. Nobody talks. 
 There is scolding and crying and laughing and 
 shouting, and there is dreary staring silence 
 never conversation. 
 
 Indoors there are no amusements. There are 
 no books and no games, nor any place to play 
 the games should they exist. Wet holidays 
 mean quarrelling and mischief, and a distracted 
 mother. Every woman sighs when holidays 
 begin. Boys and girls who earn money probably 
 spend some of it on picture palaces; but the 
 dependent children of parents in steady work at 
 a low wage are not able to visit these fascinating 
 places much as they would like to. Two in- 
 stances of " picktur show, 2d." appeared in the 
 
THE CHILDREN 193 
 
 budgets. One was that of a young, newly 
 married couple. The visitor smilingly hoped 
 that they had enjoyed themselves. " 'E treated 
 me," said the young wife proudly. " Then why 
 does it come in your budget ?" asked the visitor. 
 The girl stared. " Oh, I paid," she explained; 
 " he let me take 'im." The other case was that 
 of two middle-aged people, of about thirty, 
 where there were four children. A sister-in-law 
 minded the children, they took the baby with 
 them, and earnestly enjoyed the representation 
 of a motor-car touring through the stars, and of 
 the chase and capture of a murderer by a most 
 intelligent boy, " not bigger than Alfie." Here 
 again the wife paid. 
 
 The outstanding fact about the children was 
 not their stupidity nor their lack of beauty 
 they were neither stupid nor ugly it was their 
 puny size and damaged health. On the whole, 
 the health of those who lived upstairs was less 
 bad than that of those who lived on the ground- 
 floor, and decidedly less bad than that of those 
 who lived in basements. Overcrowding in a 
 first-floor room did not seem as deadly as over- 
 crowding on the floor below. It is difficult to 
 separate causes. Whether the superior health 
 enjoyed by a first baby is due to more food, or to 
 less overcrowding, or to less exposure to infec- 
 tion, is impossible to determine ; perhaps it would 
 be safe to say that it is due to all three, but 
 whatever the exact causes are which produce in 
 
 13 
 
194 THE CHILDREN 
 
 each case the sickly children so common in these 
 households, the all-embracing one is poverty- 
 The proportion of the infantile death-rate of 
 Hampstead to that of Hoxton something like 
 18 to 140 proves this to be a fact. The 42 
 families already investigated in this inquiry 
 have had altogether 201 children, but 18 of 
 these were either born dead or died within a 
 few hours. Of the remaining 183 children of 
 all ages, ranging from a week up to sixteen or 
 seventeen years, 39 had died, or over one-fifth. 
 Out of the 144 survivors 5 were actually de- 
 ficient, while many were slow in intellect or 
 unduly excitable. Those among them who were 
 born during the investigation were, with one 
 exception, normal, cosy, healthy babies, with 
 good appetites, who slept and fed in the usual 
 way. They did not, however, in spite of special 
 efforts made on their behalf, fulfil their first 
 promise. At one year of age their environment 
 had put its mark upon them. Though superior 
 to babies of their class, who had not had special 
 nourishment and care, they were vastly inferior 
 to children of a better class who, though no finer 
 or healthier at birth, had enjoyed proper con- 
 ditions, and could therefore develop on sound 
 and hygienic lines. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 THE PEOPLE WHO ARE OUT OF WORK 
 
 THERE is a large class of people who get less than 
 1 8s. a week, because they get irregular work. 
 There is also a class of people who get a regular 
 wage which does not rise above i8s. They 
 get 145., or 153., and are generally supposed to 
 be doing a boy's job. Men sometimes answer an 
 advertisement for a boy's place and take it 
 rather then go unemployed altogether. The 
 firms who pay by the day often have men re- 
 ceiving 33. or 35. 6d. a day and doing three days 
 a week. In many ways it is possible for a man 
 to get less than i8s. a week. He need not be 
 a drunkard or a slacker. He may have been ill 
 and lost his regular job. His employer may 
 have sold the business. The works on which 
 he was employed may suddenly finish. He 
 finds himself out of work and, having no money 
 in hand, he is forced to take anything he can get 
 in order to keep his children from the workhouse. 
 It has been possible to follow the fortunes of a 
 certain number of cases who, for one or other of 
 these reasons, fell out of work. Their subsequent 
 struggles afford material with which to probe 
 the mystery of how such people manage. 
 
 195 
 
196 PEOPLE WHO ARE OUT OF WORK 
 
 Mr. Q., a carter out of work through illness, 
 got an odd job once or twice in the week. His 
 wages had been 245. Six children were born, 
 of whom five were alive. 
 
 July 7, 1910, had earned 
 55. $d. 
 
 s. d. 
 
 goes unpaid 
 lapsed 
 . . 02 
 ..04 
 ..06 
 o i 
 
 Rent 
 
 Insurance 
 
 Coal 
 
 Soap, soda 
 
 Gas 
 
 Matches . , 
 
 Blacklead 
 
 i* 
 
 9 loaves . . 
 Meat 
 
 Potatoes .. 
 Vegetables 
 Margarine 
 3 ozs. tea 
 Tinned milk 
 ilbs. sugar 
 Dripping . . 
 
 Leaving for Food, 45. 
 
 s. d. 
 
 2 of 
 
 o 9 
 
 O \ 
 
 o i 
 
 O If 
 
 o 3 
 
 none 
 
 o 3 
 
 o 6 
 
 4 3* 
 
 Or an average per head for food of 7Jd. a 
 week, or id. a day. 
 
 Rent (two weeks) 
 
 Insurance 
 
 Coal 
 
 Gas 
 
 Soap, soda, blue . , 
 
 Wood 
 
 55. lod. 
 
 Leaving for Food 
 
 
 35. lod. 
 
 s. d. 
 
 
 
 s. d. 
 
 II 
 
 7 loaves . . 
 
 
 i 7i 
 
 lapsed 
 
 Meat 
 
 
 o 6 
 
 O 2 
 
 Potatoes . . 
 
 
 o 3* 
 
 o 5 a 
 
 Vegetables 
 Margarine 
 
 
 O I 
 
 o oi 
 
 4 ozs. tea 
 
 
 o 4 
 
 
 
 Tinned milk 
 
 
 
 12 O 
 
 i Ibs. sugar 
 
 
 o 3 
 
 
 Dripping . . 
 
 
 o 6 
 
 
 i Ib. jam . . 
 
 
 o 3i 
 
 
 
 
 3 10 
 
 Or an average per head for food of 6|d. a week, 
 or less than id. a day. 
 Mr. I., bottle washer, out of work through ill- 
 
PEOPLE WHO ARE OUT OF WORK 197 
 
 ness, wife earned what she could. Wages i8s. 
 when in work. One child born, one alive. 
 August 10, 1910, Mrs. I. had earned 2s. 6d. 
 
 Rent .. 
 Insurance 
 Coal .. 
 Lamp oil 
 Soap, soda 
 
 
 
 Went unpaid. 
 Lapsed. 
 
 Nothing. 
 
 Mrs. I. was told by infirmary doctor to feed 
 her husband up. 
 
 s. d. 
 
 3 loaves 
 Meat .. 
 Potatoes 
 Vegetables 
 3 ozs. tea 
 i Ib. sugar 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 o 8 
 i i 
 
 o 3 
 o of 
 
 O ^ 
 2 
 
 Average per head for food iod., or i|d. a day. 
 
 August 17, Mrs. I. had earned 35. 6d. 
 
 s. d. 
 
 Rent . . Went unpaid. 
 
 Insurance 
 Coal .. 
 Lamp oil 
 
 Soap 
 Firewood 
 
 Mrs. I. still feeding her husband up, 
 
 o 4 
 
 O 2 
 
 O 2 
 
 O I 
 
 o 9 
 
 4 loaves 
 Meat .. 
 Potatoes 
 Vegetables 
 i oz. tea 
 i Jibs, sugar 
 Margarine 
 
 
 
 
 
 s. d. 
 
 II 
 I O 
 O 2 
 I 
 O I 
 
 o 3 
 o 3 
 
 2 9 
 
198 PEOPLE WHO ARE OUT OF WORK 
 
 Average per head for food nd., or if d. per day. 
 
 When Mr. I. could earn again, his back rent 
 amounted to 153. He found work in the north 
 of London, he living south of Kennington Park. 
 He walked to and from his work every day, 
 refusing to move because he and his wife were 
 known in Kennington, and rather than see them 
 go into the " house," their friends would help 
 them through a bad spell. 
 
 Mr. J., carter out of work through illness, took 
 out an organ when well enough to push it. Wages 
 i8s. when in work. Six children born, six alive. 
 
 January 26, 1910, Mr. and Mrs. J. had earned 
 
 between them gs. 
 February 2, 1910, Mr. and Mrs. J. had earned 
 
 between them 73. 
 February 9, 1910, Mr. and Mrs. J. had earned 
 
 between them 8s. lod. 
 February 16, 1910, Mr. and Mrs. J. had earned 
 
 between them 93. 
 February 23, 1910, Mr. and Mrs. J. had earned 
 
 between them 73. 6d. 
 
 
 Jan. 26. 
 
 Feb. 2. 
 
 Feb. 9. 
 
 Feb. 16. 
 
 Feb. 23. 
 
 
 s. d. 
 
 s. d. 
 
 s. d. 
 
 s. d. 
 
 s. d. 
 
 Rent 
 
 5 6 
 
 3 o 
 
 5 6 
 
 5 6 
 
 3 6 
 
 Coal 
 
 o 6 
 
 o 6 
 
 o 4 
 
 o 6 
 
 o 6 
 
 Wood . . 
 
 O I 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
 O I 
 
 lA 
 
 Lamp oil 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
 ij 
 
 Soap, soda 
 
 2 
 
 2 
 
 2 
 
 2 
 
 o 4 
 
 
 6 4 
 
 3 10 
 
 6 2 
 
 6 4 
 
 4 7 
 
 Leaving for food 
 
 2 8 
 
 3 2 
 
 2 8 
 
 2 8 
 
 2 II 
 
 Average for food 
 per head a week 
 
 
 almost 
 
 
 
 
 in holidays 
 
 o 4 
 
 5d. 
 
 o 4 
 
 o 4 
 
 o 4 J 
 
PEOPLE WHO ARE OUT OF WORK 199 
 
 Those children who were of school age in these 
 three families were fed once a day for five days 
 a week during term-time. None of the children 
 were earning. The three women were extremely 
 clean, and, as far as their wretched means would 
 allow, were good managers. It is impossible to 
 lay out to advantage money which comes in 
 spasmodically and belated, so that some urgent 
 need must be attended to with each penny as it 
 is earned. After a certain point of starvation 
 food must come first, though before that point 
 is reached it is extraordinary how often rent 
 seems to be made a first charge on wages. 
 
 Mr. V. worked for a relative who was in busi- 
 ness in a very small way. For driving a little 
 one-horse cart his usual wage was only i8s., 
 and when the business fell off Mr. V. found him- 
 self getting three days a week instead of six. Later 
 on he got half days and odd days, which only 
 produced a few shillings all told. He tried on off 
 days to get odd jobs of any sort. Four children 
 had been born, of whom two were living. 
 
 January 12, 1910, to January 19, he earned 
 8s. 2d. 
 
 s. d. 
 Rent (one room at a weekly rental 
 
 of 33. 9d.) 29 
 
 Coal . . . . . . . . ..14 t 
 
 Wood . . . . . . ..01 
 
 Lamp oil . . , . . . ..03 
 
 Soap, soda . . . . . . ..02 
 
 4 7 
 
200 PEOPLE WHO ARE OUT OF WORK 
 
 Leaving 33. 7|-d. for food, which is nearly nd. 
 a head per week, or ijd. a day all round the 
 family. 
 
 Between January 19 and 26 Mr. V. earned 
 43. 8d. 
 
 s. d. 
 
 Rent . . 23 
 
 o 6 
 
 Coal .. 
 Wood 
 Lamp oil 
 Soap, soda 
 
 Leaving is. yd. for food. 
 
 Friendly neighbours gave a little bread and 
 Mr. V. had some meals at a cabman's shelter in 
 return for calling drivers when fares wanted them. 
 
 On January 27 he opened the cab-door for a 
 lady, who gave him 2d. The police were watch- 
 ing him and he was arrested for begging. The 
 visitor was enabled to see the charge sheet and 
 speak in his favour. He was a week on remand, 
 and three days in prison. His wife borrowed 
 5s. from sympathetic neighbours. 
 
 Rent (of which 2S. 6d. was back rent) 
 
 Wood 
 
 Coal 
 
 s. d. 
 
 3 9 
 o i 
 
 o 4 
 
 4 2 
 
 Leaving rod. for food for three people. Again 
 neighbours came to the rescue, and Mrs. V. 
 received broken bread and several cups of tea. 
 She spent the lod. thus : 
 
PEOPLE WHO ARE OUT OF WORK 201 
 
 Bread . . 
 Sugar . . 
 Butter 
 2 potato:? 
 
 d. 
 
 71 
 
 i 
 I 
 
 O 10 
 
 When Mr. V. came out of prison he managed 
 to earn 75. lojd. 
 
 Rent .. 
 Coal .. 
 Lamp oil 
 Wood 
 Soap .. 
 
 s. d. 
 
 3 o 
 
 i 4 
 
 o 3 
 
 o i 
 
 o i 
 
 Leaving for food 35. id., which gives an average 
 of 9-J-d. per head a week, or between ijd. and i|d. 
 a day. 
 
 The following four weeks the money earned 
 was 8s. id., 75. ij-d., 6s. Qd., and 105. 7d. The 
 averages per head a week for food were 9Jd., 8d., 
 7d., and is. 2jd. respectively. The rent had fallen 
 45. into arrears, and Mrs. V. still owed the 5s. 
 borrowed when her husband went to prison. 
 
 Mr. O., a carpenter working in a theatre and 
 earning 305., lost his job because his foreman 
 quarrelled with the management and went out, 
 taking all his men. Mr. O. got taken on as extra 
 hand in another theatre and was paid 2s. a per- 
 formance. Out of his 145. he allowed his wife 
 135. Mrs. O., being landlady of their house, was 
 responsible for i6s. a week in rent. Two lodgers 
 
202 PEOPLE WHO ARE OUT OF WORK 
 
 paid 6s. and 45. for two rooms and one room 
 respectively. Three children had been born, of 
 whom two were alive. 
 January 25, 1911. 
 
 Rent 
 
 Coal (very cold weather) 
 Burial insurance 
 
 Gas 
 
 Wood and matches . 
 
 d. 
 o 
 
 8 
 
 Leaving for food 45. njd. Mr. O. had to 
 manage on 2s. 6d. a week for food, which left his 
 wife and the two boys just under 2s. 6d. between 
 them, or lod. a week each. 
 February i. 
 
 Rent .. 6 
 
 Coal 
 
 Burial insurance 
 Gas .. 
 Soap, soda 
 Coke . . 
 
 d. 
 
 o 
 
 8 4* 
 
 Leaving for food 45. 7|d., which meant 2s. ijd. 
 for the wife and children, an average for them of 
 8|d. a week per head, <?r ijd. a day. 
 
 February 8. 
 
 s. 
 6 
 
 Rent .. 
 
 Coal .. 
 
 Burial insurance 
 
 Gas 
 
 Wood, matches 
 
 Soap, soda 
 
 d. 
 
 o 
 
 8 9 
 
PEOPLE WHO ARE OUT OF WORK 203 
 
 Leaving for food 45. 3d. This week Mrs. O. 
 was prematurely confined of twins. Both died, 
 and the case was automatically concluded. 
 When Mrs. O. recovered she found a place as 
 assistant " dresser " in a theatre. Her two boys 
 were taken care of by their grandmother, and the 
 household struggled back to something like its 
 previous income. 
 
 Mr. U., who lost his work because his employer 
 wound up the business, was a steady, well-edu- 
 cated man. He was obliged to do odd jobs 
 between long tramps to find a fresh billet. There 
 were five children born, all living, but very deli- 
 cate. Mrs. U. had managed by dint of extra- 
 ordinary and penurious thrift to save i 195. 8Jd. 
 when the crash came. 
 
 July 6, 1910, money earned 233. yd. 
 
 s. d. 
 
 Rent ..76 
 
 Burial insurance 
 
 Coal .. 
 Gas . . 
 Soap, soda 
 Boots repaired 
 Hat 
 
 o 7 
 
 7* 
 
 1 o 
 
 I 
 
 I Of 
 
 13 7* 
 
 Mrs. U. managed to do on 225. o|d,, whereby she 
 saved 9d. and spent 95. 2jd. upon food, which 
 means an average all round the family of is. 3|d. 
 per week, or 3d. a day. Mr. U. took no fixed 
 sum for his food. His wife did the best she could 
 for him and thought it cost her about 4d. a day. 
 but was not sure. 
 
204 PEOPLE WHO ARE OUT OF WORK 
 
 The savings had now mounted to 2 os. 5jd., 
 but the next week the amount brought in was 
 only i2s. 7d. 
 
 July 13- 
 
 s. 
 7 
 
 Rent .. 
 
 Burial insurance 
 Soap, soda 
 Blacking . . 
 Gas (no coal) 
 
 d. 
 6 
 
 o 7 
 
 o 31 
 
 Oi 
 
 1 O 
 
 9 5 
 
 Mrs. U. managed on 175. 6|d. for the week, 
 which left 8s. i|d. for food, or a weekly average all 
 round the family of almost is. 2d., or 2d. a day, 
 and depleted the savings to the amount of 45. nf d. 
 The reserve fund now stood at i 153. 5|d. 
 
 Next week Mr. U. made 195. 7d., but one of the 
 children won a prize of 2s., which gives 2is. 7d. 
 July 20. 
 
 s. d. 
 
 Rent 76 
 
 Burial insurance . . 07 
 
 Soap, soda .... 03 
 
 Gas (still no coal) . . I o 
 
 Boy's boots .... 2 6 
 
 Mrs. U. managed on i os. gd., which allowed 
 8s. lojd. for food, an average all round of almost 
 is. 3jd., or just over 2d. a day. Tenpence was saved 
 and the reserve fund went up to i i6s. 3?d. 
 
 July 27, 155. yd. was earned, and i8s. 3jd. was 
 spent, of which 8s. nd. went on food, an average 
 all round of is. 3jd., or slightly over 2d. a day. 
 The fund went down to i 135. 
 
PEOPLE WHO ARE OUT OF WORK 205 
 
 August 3rd, 173. id. was earned, and i8s. 2^d. 
 was spent, of which 8s. 9jd. was spent on food, 
 an average all round of is. 3d., or just over 2d. 
 a day. The fund sank to i i2s. 6d. 
 
 August 10, only 8s. yd. was earned and 165. nfd. 
 was spent, of which 75. i d. went on food, an aver- 
 age all round of is. ojd. or i|d. a day. The fund 
 was reduced to i 45. ijd. 
 
 August 17, 133. 7d. was earned, and i6s. ofd. 
 was spent, of which 6s. 9|d. was spent on food, an 
 average all round of between n|d. and nf d., or 
 less than if d. a day. The fund sank to i is. 7jd. 
 
 August 24, the food average all round was 
 io|d., or ijd. a day, and the fund sank to 195. 6d. 
 
 August 31. The food average all round was just 
 under is., or if d. a day, and the fund sank to 
 175. njd. 
 
 Terror of using up the fund completely kept 
 Mrs. U. spending an average, all round the family, 
 of under is. a week for many weeks, though 
 the earnings increased again slowly, and the 
 fund mounted by pennies and sixpences to 
 1 6s. od. Then the baby was a year old, and 
 the case came to an end. Mr. U. eventually got 
 work again at a very low but regular wage. 
 During this time of unemployment two of the 
 three children of school age were fed at school 
 for one term. The care committee of the school 
 to which the other child went did not consider 
 the case bad enough, and the two who did get 
 fed were only received after weeks of applica- 
 
206 PEOPLE WHO ARE OUT OF WORK 
 
 tion. The mother's very virtues told against 
 her. Her rooms were spotless, the decent furni- 
 ture, the tidy clothes of better days inclined the 
 school visitor to believe that food could be forth- 
 coming did the mother choose. 
 
 Mrs. X., a deserted wife with three children, 
 fell out of work owing to a dangerous illness 
 after the birth of her baby. When she recovered 
 sufficiently to work again, the parish relief, 
 which she had been receiving in kind during her 
 illness, stopped. She took in sewing and did 
 days' washing and cleaned doorsteps. 
 
 October n, 1911, received 53. 6d. 
 
 Rent (48. a week) 
 
 Coal .. .. 
 
 Gas 
 
 Fares to work 
 
 Soap, soda, blue (she supplied her 
 
 own blue and soap when she did 
 
 washing) 
 
 Went unpaid. 
 
 s. d. 
 - o 51 
 . O 3 
 
 FOOD. 
 
 5 loaves 
 Meat .. 
 Margarine 
 Potatoes 
 Greens 
 Sugar . . 
 Quaker oats 
 Tea .. 
 Fish .. 
 i tin milk 
 Salt 
 
 o 4 
 
 3l 
 
 o i 
 
 O 2| 
 
 o 7* 
 
 o 3 
 
 o 4 i 
 
 O 2 
 
 o oi 
 
 4 4* 
 
PEOPLE WHO ARE OUT OF WORK 207 
 
 The baby was receiving six quarts of milk a 
 week from friends, so we have 45. 4|d. left to 
 feed three persons an average of is. 5jd., or 
 2jd. a day. 
 October 18, amount received 73. 6d. 
 
 s. d. 
 Rent . . . . . . 40 
 
 Gas . . 
 
 Coal . . . . . . 07 
 
 Matches . . . . o O; 
 
 Soap, soda, etc. . . 3 
 
 Camphorated oil (child wi Lli a cough) o 2 
 
 4 loaves 
 Sugar . . 
 Dripping 
 Meat .. 
 Potatoes 
 Fish .. 
 Tea .. 
 i tin milk 
 
 FOOD. 
 
 5 3ft 
 
 O 10 
 
 O 2| 
 
 O 2 
 
 o 4 
 
 o 3 
 
 o if 
 
 O I 
 
 O 2 
 
 We have here 2s. 2|d. left between three 
 persons an average of 8-Jd. a week or ijd. a 
 day. 
 
 November i, IDS. was received. The rent was 
 one week behind. 
 
 Rent (two weeks; the landlady s. d. 
 downstairs was pressing) . . 80 
 
 Hat and socks .02 
 
 Soap, soda, etc. . . . . . . o 2 J 
 
 8 4* 
 
 No coal, no gas. The great bargain of hat 
 and socks for 2d. could not be passed by. 
 
208 PEOPLE WHO ARE OUT OF WORK 
 
 3 loaves 
 i tin of milk 
 Potatoes 
 Dripping 
 Tea .. 
 Meat .. 
 Fish .. 
 Onions 
 Sugar . . 
 Salt and pepp 
 
 s. d 
 o 7 
 o 
 
 o 
 
 In this instance we have 2S. ijd. to divide 
 between three persons an average of 8d. a 
 week, or ijd. a day. 
 
 This woman eventually became an office 
 cleaner at 123. a week, and her case is referred 
 to in a previous chapter. 
 
 However steady a man may be, however good 
 a worker, he is never exempt from the fear of 
 losing his job from ill-health or from other causes 
 which are out of his control. His difficulty in 
 getting into new work is often very great, be- 
 cause new work in his own trade requires time 
 and patience to find. He may have to tramp 
 from one place of business to another day after 
 day, and week after week. His trouble is that 
 if he spends the whole of his time doing this no 
 money is coming in, and he and his must live. 
 He is therefore forced to take odd jobs which 
 bring in something, but which spoil his chances 
 of regular work. Numbers of men who have a 
 
PEOPLE WHO ARE OUT OF WORK 209 
 
 trade lose it, because they cannot afford the time 
 necessary to find a new job of the same kind as 
 the one they have lost. They are forced to take 
 anything that turns up in order to keep afloat 
 at all. So the friendly foreman who says, " You 
 turn up every morning at seven o'clock, and I'll 
 call for you when I want a hand," finds when he 
 does call several days later that the man is not 
 there. No amount of explaining next day that in 
 order to keep his family he did a day's work 
 unloading a barge or sweeping snow is of avail 
 against the fact that another man has got the 
 job. Meantime, his clothes and his very muscles 
 are depreciating, and work in his own trade 
 becomes almost an impossibility to find. In 
 some employments, where it is a common custom 
 to give a man two, or three, or four days' work 
 a week and pay him by the day, it is demanded 
 that he should turn up every day of the week 
 and wait for his work, or lose the few days he has 
 the chance of getting. The carters in certain 
 well-known West End firms are employed on 
 these terms. In many employments there are 
 a number of extra men who take duty when the 
 regular man has a holiday or fails to appear. 
 These extra men live a life of great poverty and 
 great uncertainty. The work they do may be 
 skilled, and they are bound to keep their hand 
 in, and bound to appear daily in order to secure 
 a few days a week for a wage which would be 
 
 14 
 
2io PEOPLE WHO ARE OUT OF WORK 
 
 barely sufficient did they get six full days. The 
 lives of the children of the poor are shortened, 
 and the bodies of the children of the poor are 
 stunted and starved on a low wage. And to the 
 insufficiency of a low wage is added the horror 
 that it is never secure. 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 THE STANDARD OF COMFORT 
 
 IN his book, "The Living Wage," published in 
 1912, Mr. Philip Snowden devotes the third 
 chapter to an estimation of the number of adult 
 men, employed in the principal trades of the 
 United Kingdom, who are getting less than 255. 
 a week. He quotes Professor Bowley, who in 
 1911 announced that 2,500,000 adult men were 
 getting less than 255. a week when working full 
 time. This number, he explains, would be con- 
 siderably increased were the figures based on 
 actual earnings, as in almost every trade men 
 occasionally, or even habitually, work short weeks, 
 and get short pay during some part of the year. 
 
 Mr. Snowden, moreover, considers that Pro- 
 fessor Bowley had under-estimated the number 
 of adult men who, at full rates of pay, were earning 
 less than 255. a week. He takes Board of Trade 
 returns, which show that in the cotton industry, 
 which is one of the best paid of our great trades, 
 40 per cent, of adult men earned less than 253. a 
 week; that in the wool-combing industry the 
 average wage for adult men on full time was 
 
 211 
 
212 THE STANDARD OF COMFORT 
 
 173. 6d. a week; that in the linen industry 44 per 
 cent, of the adult men earned less than 205. a 
 week, and 36 per cent, earned between 205. and 
 303,; that in the jute industry 49 per cent, of the 
 adult men earned less than 2os. a week, and 36 per 
 cent, earned between 2os. and 305.; that in the 
 silk industry 19 per cent, of the adult men earned 
 less than 2os. a week, and 54 per cent, earned 
 between 205. and 303. ; and he took also a summary 
 of the actual earnings of the adult men in the 
 textile trades of the United Kingdom, which shows 
 that for one week of September, 1906, 48 per cent, 
 earned less than 253. a week. 
 
 For other occupations, Mr. Snowden, still 
 quoting Board of Trade figures, says that in the 
 clothing trade 7 per cent, of adult men earned 
 less than 2os. a week, and 27 per cent, between 
 2os. and 305. 
 
 Of bricklayers' labourers 55*9 per cent, earned 
 
 under 253. a week. 
 Of masons' labourers 67 per cent, earned under 253. 
 
 a week. 
 Of plumbers' labourers 54 per cent, earned under 
 
 255. a week. 
 Of painters' labourers 33 per cent, earned under 255. 
 
 a week. 
 Of builders' labourers 51 per cent, earned under 255. 
 
 a week. 
 
 A still later return of the Board of Trade gives 
 information as to the wages of railway men in 
 1911. The figures show that 63 per cent, of the 
 adult men got less than 255. a week. The earnings 
 of agricultural labourers, as given by the Board 
 
THE STANDARD OF COMFORT 213 
 
 of Trade, for 1907 were 155. 2d. a week in cash, or 
 i8s. 4d. a week, counting all allowances. Mr. 
 Snowden sums up the clearly set out facts given 
 in his chapter thus : 
 
 " The facts cited in this chapter show that on 
 the average something like one-half of the adult 
 men, most of whom have a family dependent 
 upon their earnings, do not earn 255. Qd. a week, 
 and that of this half, a very considerable pro- 
 portion receive very much less than a pound a 
 week. When we have considered the cost of 
 living, it will be seen how wholly inadequate 
 these wages are, and how inevitable it is that the 
 consequences of this insufficiency should show 
 themselves in the physical and social conditions 
 of the wage-earning classes." 
 
 In his estimate, Professor Bowley calculated 
 that about 8,000,000 adult men were employed 
 in regular occupations in the United Kingdom, 
 and that of these 32 per cent., or nearly one- third, 
 were earning, at full-time work, less than 255. 
 a week. As we see, Mr. Snowden comes to a 
 different conclusion, and reckons that 50 per cent, 
 of the adult men in regular employment are 
 getting less than 255. a week. If we take the 
 smaller of these two estimates and reckon that 
 one-fifth of the adult men are unmarried, we get 
 something like 2,000,000 families living on a 
 wage which is under 255. a week. Again, to 
 quote from Mr. Snowden, " Sir Robert Giffen 
 estimated twenty years ago that there were 
 
214 STATE RESPONSIBILITY 
 
 2,000,000 families where the total income did 
 not exceed a pound a week." Allowing that the 
 average family consists of a man and his wife 
 and two children, we get 8 ; 000,000 persons who are 
 living more or less as are the people whose daily 
 life has been described in the previous chapters 
 of this book, while, if we take Mr. Snowden's own 
 estimate, the number is far greater. That means 
 that the great bulk of this enormous mass of 
 people are under-fed, under-housed, and insuffi- 
 ciently clothed. The children among them suffer 
 more than the adults. Their growth is stunted, 
 their mental powers are cramped, their health is 
 undermined. 
 
 A hundred years ago their fathers would have 
 regarded these children as economic assets, and 
 the family income would have been produced by 
 every member who was over a very tender age. 
 During the last century the State prohibited the 
 employment of children under a certain age an 
 age which, as wisdom grows, tends to become 
 higher and higher. By this necessary action the 
 State formally invested itself with the ultimate 
 responsibility for the lives and welfare of its 
 children, and the guardianship thus exercised has 
 continually been enlarged in scope until it has 
 assumed supreme control of the nurture and 
 training of the youth of the nation. A birth now 
 means that a new human being must be fed, 
 clothed, and housed in a manner which the State 
 as guardian considers sufficient, for a period which 
 
STATE RESPONSIBILITY 215 
 
 we now hope to raise to sixteen years. If a man 
 in these days sets his young children to earn 
 money, or, if they be not fed, clothed, cared for, 
 and sent regularly to school, he can be put in 
 prison. If the children's mother be a wage- 
 earner, she can also be sent to prison if her 
 children are not sufficiently cared for. Even the 
 non-earning mother who has only what her hus- 
 band chooses to give her can be imprisoned if 
 a magistrate decide that any child-neglect is 
 chargeable to her. It would seem reasonable 
 to expect that when the ultimate responsibility 
 for their welfare is undertaken by a rich and 
 powerful State, children should at least be in 
 receipt of sufficient food, shelter, warmth, and 
 clothing. 
 
 Instead, however, of co-operating with parents 
 and seeing to it that its wards are supplied with 
 such primary necessaries, this masculine State, 
 representing only male voters, and, until lately, 
 chiefly those of the richer classes, has been crude " 
 and unwise in its relations with all parents guilty 
 of the crime of poverty. With the best intentions 
 it has piled upon them responsibilities which it 
 has left them to cope with unaided. We still 
 have the children of sober, industrious men and 
 women living lives which maim and stunt them 
 and make of them a handicap for the very State 
 of which they are part. And we have parents 
 whose wages are insufficient for their own needs 
 spending themselves to perform the impossible, 
 
216 MINIMUM WAGE 
 
 and, while they fail, the State their partner in 
 responsibility looks the other way. 
 
 The first remedy for this state of things which 
 springs to the mind of the social reformer is a 
 legal minimum wage. The discussion of a mini- 
 mum wage, which is at the same time to be a 
 family wage, is exceedingly difficult. We realise 
 that wages are not now paid on a family basis. 
 If they were we should not have 2,500,000 adult 
 men receiving for full-time work a sum which 
 the writer has no hesitation in saying is less than 
 sufficient for the proper maintenance, and that on 
 the lowest scale, of one adult person. To pay 
 wages in future, on an adequate family basis, to 
 every adult worker who could possibly have 
 helpless children dependent upon him or her 
 would be a startlingly new departure. There are 
 none, in fact, who advocate it. And yet if we 
 are really attempting to solve the problem of 
 hungry children by minimum wage legislation, we 
 ought to aim at no less. Of course, what usually 
 is advocated is the paying of a family wage to all 
 adult men, while paying women an individual 
 wage the assumption being that women never 
 maintain families. But we know this assumption 
 to be untrue. Many thousands of women do 
 maintain families, and if, through the medium of 
 the minimum wage, their children also are to be 
 kept in decency and comfort, the wages of women 
 must also be on the family basis. Another diffi- 
 culty in dealing with a family wage is the question 
 
MINIMUM WAGE 217 
 
 of what sized family ? There is no standard 
 either in numbers or in age. If the wage be cal- 
 culated upon a wife and two children, it will not 
 support a wife and six children. Nor if it be 
 calculated upon three children under four will it 
 support in equal efficiency three children of ten, 
 eleven and thirteen. Further, if a law which 
 would keep children at school until the age of 
 sixteen should happily come into force, the diffi- 
 culty of reckoning a minimum wage which would 
 suit everybody would be still greater. 
 
 A third difficulty is the fact that money paid 
 as wage for work done must, in the nature of 
 things, belong wholly and entirely to the person 
 who performs the work. He or she is free to 
 devote such money to any purpose they think 
 best, and cases are not unknown of children who 
 do not receive even such nurture as their parents' 
 means could allow. Many people solve these 
 knotty points by dropping women bread-winners 
 out of the problem, by arranging that the family 
 consists of five persons a man, his wife, and 
 three children and by assuming that every 
 parent thinks more of his or her children's welfare 
 than of self. By doing this, they deal with 
 theories instead of facts. 
 
 The two sums that have been seriously dis- 
 cussed by such various authorities as Mr. Rown- 
 tree, Mr. Charles Booth, and the Labour party 
 are 255. a week and 305. a week. Neither sum 
 is really enough in some localities should there be 
 
2i8 MINIMUM WAGE 
 
 more than three children, who are to be properly 
 housed as well as properly dressed and fed. And 
 neither sum as a hard and fast minimum, even 
 for men only, is considered practical politics by 
 anybody. Scientific minimum wage schemes 
 must consider and give weight to the conditions 
 of each trade and locality. Many decisions in the 
 worst paid trades will follow the example of the 
 decisions under the Trades Boards Act, and when 
 a minimum has been arrived at it will be though 
 an advance on present wages insufficient perhaps 
 to keep in real efficiency and comfort a single adult. 
 
 Moreover, to keep the children of the nation in 
 health and strength is too important and vital a 
 responsibility to be placed entirely on the shoulders 
 of one section of the community namely, the 
 employers of labour. It is a responsibility which 
 should be undertaken by the only authority which 
 is always equal to its complete fulfilment the 
 State. 
 
 Therefore, although any minimum wage scheme 
 which proposes to raise the bottom wages in any 
 trade or trades, or for any group or groups of 
 workers, is a necessary part of legislation, and 
 must be urgently insisted upon in any plan for 
 social reform, no minimum wage legislation now 
 proposed, or likely to be proposed, will deal ade- 
 quately with the question of all the children of 
 the working poor. Yet unless we do deal with all 
 of them, and deal adequately, the problem of the 
 nation's children goes unsolved. 
 
LIMITED FAMILIES 219 
 
 Two theories are sometimes seriously brought 
 forward as means by which the problem of hungry 
 children could be dealt with. One is that if only 
 the poor could be induced to cut down their 
 families to fit their incomes there would be no 
 problem. The other is, that if only the woman 
 with 2os. a week knew how to spend it she could 
 feed, lodge, and clothe her family with perfect 
 ease. The first of these two ideas if it ever 
 possibly could be put into practice would find a 
 cure for poverty by the dying out of all the poor 
 people. The man with 205. and less could not 
 even marry; the man with 255. might perhaps 
 marry, but coirid have no children ; the man with 
 305. might have one or two children one is 
 tempted to say " and so on." But the people 
 with incomes over the income-tax level do not 
 nowadays as a rule err on the side of too large 
 families. Many people with the comparatively 
 enormous sum of 10 a week hesitate to have 
 more than one or two children. It is obvious that 
 were the children of the poor limited according 
 to wage there would be no corresponding advance 
 in the size of the families of the rich. It is not 
 only that the nation would shrink, but the wage- 
 eanier would automatically cease to reproduce 
 himself. It seems an heroic way of curing his 
 difficulties. Obviously as a palliative in indi- 
 vidual cases the plan of limiting the family accord- 
 ing to wage appeals with great force to the well- 
 fed and more fortunate observer, but as a national 
 
220 LIMITED FAMILIES 
 
 measure to deal with poverty it fails to convince. 
 That a man with 245. a week is unwise to have 
 six children is perfectly true. But, then, what 
 sized family would he be wise to have ? If he 
 were really prudent and careful of his future he 
 would, on such a wage, neither marry nor have 
 children at all. He could in that case live 
 economically on 2os. a week and save the 45. 
 towards his old age. But we cannot expect 
 Professor Bowley's 2,500,000 adult men to act 
 on those lines. The fact is they want to marry 
 and they want to have children. As either of 
 these courses is unwise on 245. a week, they are 
 in for a life of imprudence anyhow. The very 
 facts of their poverty close quarters and lack of 
 mental interest and amusement, and, above all, 
 lack of money help to make the limitation of 
 their family almost an impossibility to them. 
 
 The other suggestion has been already dealt 
 with in previous chapters. It is always worth 
 while, of course, to teach an improvident and 
 stupid woman to be careful and clever if you 
 can. But to put down all the miseries and crying 
 wants of the children of the poor to the ignorance 
 and improvidence of their mothers is merely to 
 salve an uneasy conscience by blaming someone 
 else. It is almost better to face the position and 
 say, " The poor should not be allowed to have 
 children," than to pretend that they could house, 
 clothe, and feed them very well on the money at 
 their disposal if they chose. 
 
MILK FOR CHILDREN 221 
 
 In Schedule A in the First Report of the 
 Departmental Committee, with respect to the 
 Poor Law Orders, a diet for a child of over two 
 and under eight years is given, of which one day 
 in any workhouse might be as follows : 
 
 Breakfast. Bread, 5 ounces ; fresh milk, J- pint. 
 
 Dinner. Roast beef, ij- ounces; potatoes or 
 other vegetables, 4 ounces ; fresh fruit-pudding, 
 6 ounces. 
 
 Supper. Seed-cake, 4 ounces; cocoa (half 
 milk), J pint. 
 
 No mother on 2os. a week could secure such 
 food for her children. It is not supposed that the 
 Departmental Committee appointed by the Presi- 
 dent of the Local Government Board would pre- 
 scribe an extravagant diet, and it seems terrible 
 that the children of the hard-working honest poor 
 should be fed on a diet which is about half that 
 prescribed as the most economical and very least 
 that a healthy workhouse child should have. In 
 this report it has been decreed that the workhouse 
 child needs milk. Half of its evening and morn- 
 ing meals are to be of bread and milk. Further, 
 " milk " is specially notified as meaning " new 
 milk, whole and undiluted." If the workhouse 
 child needs about a pint of whole and undiluted 
 new milk a day, as well as other food such as 
 vegetables, fruit, bread, and cocoa, so does the 
 child outside the workhouse. No scheme of 
 porridge and lentils will do for a child without 
 milk, and milk is expensive. When the mother 
 
222 STANDARD OF COMFORT 
 
 has fed the breadwinner in accordance with his 
 tastes and with some semblance of efficiency, she 
 has no chance of being able to afford even a half- 
 ration of milk for her children. When she has 
 balanced the problem of housing against that of 
 feeding, and has decided on the wisest course 
 open to her, she has still to put her children three 
 and four in a bed. She cannot separate the in- 
 fectious from the healthy, nor the boys from the 
 girls. She can never choose a sanitary and 
 healthful life. She can only choose the less of 
 two great evils. 
 
 No teacher of domestic science, however capable, 
 can instruct girls scientifically and in detail how 
 adequately to house, clothe, clean, warm, light, 
 insure, and feed a family of four or five persons 
 on 2os. a week in London. The excellent in- 
 struction given by the L.C.C. teachers is based 
 on budgets of 3, 353., or of 28s. for a family of 
 six persons. It was realised that to teach girls how 
 to manage inadequately would be false teaching. 
 If the scientific and trained teacher cannot solve 
 the problem, the untrained, overburdened mother 
 should not be criticised because she also fails. 
 The work which she is expected to do is of supreme 
 importance. It would be enlightened wisdom to 
 enable her to do it. 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 THE STATE AS GUARDIAN 
 
 FROM a leading article in The Times, October 7, 
 1913: 
 
 " They (women) are resolved, we may take it, 
 that laws and customs which do not recognise that 
 their children are the children of the nation are 
 behind the times and must be altered. Because 
 they are the children of the nation, the nation 
 owes them all the care that a mother owes to her 
 own child. Because they are the future nation, 
 the nation can only neglect them to its own hurt 
 and undoing. That is a law of life which is proved 
 up to the hilt by the bitter and humiliating ex- 
 perience of a large proportion of the disease and 
 mortality and crime in our homes and hospitals 
 and asylums and prisons. But it is a law of life 
 which also carries with it this further truth that 
 the nation's children are the nation's opportunity." 
 
 What is needed is the true fulfilment of human 
 parenthood which is a natural unforced and un- 
 forceable relation of the spirit as well as of the 
 flesh. Money, and the efficient, skilled service it 
 procures, can be provided from any source. But 
 223 
 
224 THE STATE AS GUARDIAN 
 
 that close, personal affection and watchfulness 
 essential to children which no other guardianship 
 can replace can only be given by parents. Yet 
 even parents can be thwarted and embittered by 
 crushing toil and slavish drudgery until their 
 natural affection is destroyed. The nation needs 
 the active and free co-operation of fathers and 
 mothers in the upbringing of its children, and it 
 must enable them to do their share of the work. 
 
 At the present moment the nation, as super- 
 guardian of its children, acts, in the case of the 
 children of the poor, in a manner so baffling, so 
 harassing, so contradictory, that the only feelings 
 it induces in the minds of parents whose lives are 
 passed in incessant toil and incessant want are 
 exasperation, fear, and resentment. 
 
 Some painful cases show the way in which the 
 State, as guardian of its children, uses its great 
 power merely to punish the parent and not to 
 protect the child. Where either father or mother 
 is convicted and sentenced for cruelty, the child 
 is often left helpless in the hands of a still more 
 brutalised parent when he or she comes out of 
 gaol. Cases exist in which a father, sentenced to 
 hard labour for criminal assault on his own child, 
 can again be given custody of that child on his 
 return to work at the completion of his sentence. 
 Punishment of the parent may be a terrible 
 necessity; but the main object of reasoned public 
 action should be permanently to protect and 
 deliver the child. 
 
THE STATE AS GUARDIAN 225 
 
 A wife may be granted in public court separa- 
 tion from her husband for cruelty or desertion, 
 with an order that he should pay her a weekly 
 allowance for the support of the children of the 
 marriage. By spending on summonses money 
 she can ill afford, she may find it possible to get 
 her husband sent to prison for non-payment of 
 the allowance. But the court contents itself 
 with punishing the father, and takes no steps to 
 ensure the welfare of the children by enforcing 
 payment. 
 
 A mother, the breadwinner for three young 
 children, earned I2s. a week for work which took 
 her from home in the early morning and again 
 in the evening. During two daily absences, which 
 cost her 2s. weekly in fares, she was obliged to 
 leave her baby lying in its perambulator. The 
 illness of an elder child brought an education 
 officer to investigate his absence from school. 
 The officer discovered the boy in bed with rheu- 
 matic fever, and the baby unattended. Meeting 
 the hurrying mother as she came back from her 
 morning's work, he indignantly informed her that 
 it was against the law to leave a baby as hers had 
 been left. She must in future pay a neighbour 
 to care for it in her daily absences, or the police 
 would interfere. She pleaded with him; in her 
 ignorance of the ideals and methods of our English 
 law, she explained her circumstances. He was, 
 of course, sorry about it, but the upshot of their 
 conversation was that by the direct action of 
 
 15 
 
226 THE STATE AS GUARDIAN 
 
 Public Authority the mother was forced to pay 
 a neighbour to care for the baby, and the zos. a 
 week on which four persons were living was fur- 
 ther diminished. Such a woman may be poten- 
 tially a good parent had she any means by which 
 she could make her good parenthood effective. 
 But her experience of State guardianship of her 
 children may be that Public Authority, without 
 troubling as to whether or not fulfilment be in 
 her power, forces further duties and responsi- 
 bilities on to her shoulders in respect of those 
 children through the threatened medium of the 
 police, with all the horrors of prison in the back- 
 ground. 
 
 Suppose the State, as co-guardian of the child, 
 stripped off, when dealing with parents, the uni- 
 form of a police-constable with a warrant in his 
 pocket. Suppose it approached them in some 
 such spirit as that displayed by the Public Trustee 
 when dealing with testators and executors. He 
 offers advice, security, a free hand in carrying out 
 any legal purpose, and he acts with or without 
 other executors, as the case may require. Why 
 should not the nation place all the information, all 
 the security, all the help at its command at the 
 service of its co-guardians, the fathers and 
 mothers ? Why should it not act frankly with 
 them in the national interest, and help them to 
 see that the needs of the child are supplied ? 
 
 The final responsibility for the child's welfare, 
 the paramount authority in securing it, belong 
 
PUBLIC GUARDIANSHIP 227 
 
 to the State. Why not recognise the national 
 responsibility by the definite appointment of a 
 public Guardian who would enter upon the rela- 
 tion of co-guardian with the parents of every 
 child at the registration of its birth ? 
 
 Even now fundamental parental obligations are 
 supposed to be the same in all classes, but the 
 well-to-do can fulfil them after a fashion without 
 the assistance of the State, though often with 
 much insecurity and strain. Were there a de- 
 partment of Public Guardianship upon which 
 every parent might rely for counsel and effective 
 help, very many whose difficulty is not the actual 
 housing and feeding of their children would be 
 only too glad to take advantage of its advice. 
 And even amongst the well-to-do, fathers and 
 mothers die or lose their faculties, or are unfit, 
 and the nation's children are the sufferers. 
 
 The appointment of a Public Guardian to co- 
 operate with parents in all ranks of society is the 
 only effective method, not only of preventing the 
 national disgrace of " waste children," but of 
 doing away with the hardships, the distrusts, the 
 fears and the resentments caused amongst the 
 workers by the present harsh and ill-defined 
 exercise of national Guardianship. 
 
 It is to the collective interest of a nation that 
 its children should flourish. They are the future 
 nation. To them the State will be entrusted. 
 To them the work, the duty, the scheme 
 of things will be handed on. Suppose children 
 
228 MAINTENANCE GRANTS 
 
 were recognised to be more important than 
 wealth suppose they were really put first what 
 machinery have we which already deals with their 
 lives, their health, and their comfort ? We have 
 a national system of education which we propose 
 to extend and elaborate, and to which we have 
 recently attached medical inspection, and we 
 have the time-honoured machinery of the home. 
 The children of the poor pass their lives within 
 the limits of these two institutions, and behind 
 both stands the State, which entirely regulates 
 one and is constantly modifying the other. 
 
 To equip the home for the vital responsibility 
 committed to its care, the new administrative 
 agency must have the power to go further than 
 the offering of advice and information to its fellow- 
 guardians, the parents. It must endow every 
 child who needs it with a grant sufficient to secure 
 it a minimum of health and comfort. Mainte- 
 nance grants from the State are no new thing. 
 Inadequate grants are now made to the parents 
 of free scholars in secondary schools. What is 
 wanted is the extension and development of the 
 idea. Based on the need of the child and limited 
 thereby, the grant would not become a weapon 
 to keep down wages. Men and women whose 
 children are secure are free to combine, to strike, 
 to take risks. Men and women who have the 
 entire burden of a family on their shoulders are 
 not really free to do so. 
 
 The State's guarantee of the necessaries of life 
 
BABY CLINICS 229 
 
 to every child could be fulfilled through various 
 channels some of them, as the feeding of school- 
 children, already in existence. This is no sug- 
 gestion for class differentiation. The scholars on 
 the foundation of many of the great public schools, 
 such as Eton and Winchester, are fed, as well as 
 housed and educated, from the funds of old en- 
 dowments. National school feeding, endowed 
 from national wealth, would be an enlargement 
 and amalgamation of systems already in being. 
 There should be no such thing as an underfed 
 school child : an underfed child is a disgrace and a 
 danger to the State. 
 
 The medical inspection of school-children, ex- 
 tended to children of all classes, should lead to a 
 universal system of school clinics, where the 
 children would not only be examined, but treated. 
 Baby clinics should be within the reach of every 
 mother, and should be centres where doctors and 
 nurses, at intervals to be dictated by them, would 
 weigh and examine every child born within their 
 district. At this moment any weighing centre, 
 school for mothers, or baby clinic which does 
 exist is fighting the results of bad housing, in- 
 sufficient food, and miserable clothing evils 
 which no medical treatment can cure. Such 
 evils would be put an end to by the State grant. 
 
 Nor would an intolerable system of inspection 
 be necessary in order to see that the co-trustees 
 of the State the parents should faithfully per- 
 form their part of the great work they are under- 
 
230 CLINICS AND THE HOME 
 
 taking. At every baby clinic the compulsory 
 attendances of a well-dressed, well-nourished, 
 well-cared-for child would be marked as satis- 
 factory. No inspection needed. An unsatis- 
 factory child would perhaps be obliged to attend 
 more often, or its condition might require the help 
 and guidance of a health visitor in the home. In 
 this way a merely less efficient home would easily 
 be distinguished from one which was impossible. 
 The somewhat inefficient home might be helped, 
 improved, and kept together, while, if the home 
 conditions were hopelessly bad, the public guar- 
 dian would in the last resort exercise its power of 
 making fresh provision for the ward of the nation 
 in some better home. 
 
 As things now are, we have machinery by which 
 the State in its capacity of co-guardian coerces 
 the parents and urges on them duties which, 
 unaided, they cannot perform. Parents are to 
 feed, clothe, and house their children decently, 
 or they can be dealt with by law. But when, as 
 a matter of fact, it is publicly demonstrated that 
 millions of parents cannot do this, and that the 
 children are neither fed, clothed, nor housed 
 decently, the State, which is guardian-in-chief, 
 finds it convenient to look the other way, shirking 
 its own responsibility, but falling foul, in special 
 instances, of parents who have failed to comply 
 with the law. 
 
 The law which is supposed to exist for the pur- 
 pose of protecting children, seems to exist for the 
 
THE CHILDREN FIRST 231 
 
 purpose of punishing parents, while doing nothing, 
 or next to nothing, for the children. The idea 
 still prevails among some care committees and 
 school authorities that a " bad " parent must not 
 be " encouraged " by feeding his children at 
 school, and cases are known to exist where, in 
 order to punish the parent, a hungry child is not 
 fed. The one mistake an authority which con- 
 sidered the children first would not make would 
 be that of punishing the child to spite the parent. 
 Between Boards of Guardians, Care Committees, 
 School Authorities, and Police, parents who are. 
 poor are bafHed and puzzled and disheartened. 
 It would be well for them to have a central 
 authority whose first thought was the real wel- 
 fare of the children of the State, and who blamed 
 and punished parents only when it was clear that 
 they deserved blame and punishment. That 
 would be real, not false, " relief " of the poor. 
 
 THE END 
 
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