Round about a Pound a Week

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 enormous number of carmen by the day. The inner ring of men were given a day’s work every day, and earned 3s. 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 Christmas 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 1s. 6d. a week. Occasionally he was lucky enough to have two vans to wash, when his money would amount to 10s. He allowed his wife 8s. 6d. There was one child. The rent for the single room was 3s. 6d., and there was no insurance.

Sunday.—Breakfast: Bloater for father, 1 teaspoonful of tea between them, 1 teaspoonful of milk from tin each, 1 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).

Wednesday.—Dinner: ½ lb. “pieces” (3d.) stewed with potatoes, which were given by mother.

Thursday.—Dinner: What is left of stew and potatoes.

Friday.—Dinner: ½ lb. rashers (3d.), with potatoes given by mother.

Saturday.—Dinner: The other ½ lb. rashers, with potatoes given by mother.

A week’s budget runs thus:

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.”

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 7s. 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 12s. 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 4s. 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 1s. a week. Added to her regular wage of 12s. as office cleaner, she occasionally had a job on Saturdays, which brought her in 1s. more, so that her income sometimes amounted to 13s. a week.

Her menu ran as follows:

Sunday.—Breakfast: Half a loaf, margarine, and tea. Dinner: Sausages, 1 lb. (4d.), or “pieces” (4d.), potatoes, sometimes pot herbs, 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: ¼ lb. 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:

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. 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 probability 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 economically 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 necessaries have been paid for. When it comes to a pinch, food is the elastic item. Rent is occasionally not paid at all during a crisis, but the knowledge 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 experience, 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 accustomed 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, 1911, to February, 1912, was a railway-carriage washer, and was paid 18s. for a six days’ week, alternately with 21s. 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.

A 21/0 Week.

Left for Food, 8/1.

Average per head for food all round the family, 1s. 7½d. a week, or less than 3d. a day. But a working man cannot do on less than 6d. a day, or 3s. 6d. a week. This reduces the mother and children to 1s. 1¾d. 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 20s. for household. There were six children born, and six alive.

November 23, 1911.

Left for Food, 7/0½.

Average per head for food all round the family, 10½d. a week, or 1½d. a day.

About December, 1911, the household allowance was raised to 21s. 9d., with occasional grants of 1s. towards clothes.

Mr. C., whose house was visited from November, 1910, to July, 1911, worked in a pottery. His wages were 22s. He allowed 20s. There were four children born, and four alive.

February 15, 1911.

Left for Food, 9/9½.

Average per head for food all round the family, 1s. 7½d. a week, or 2¾d. a day. Putting the father’s 3s. 6d. on one side, the mother and children average 1s. 5d. a week, or 2½d. a day.

Mr. D., whose house was visited from June, 1910, till July, 1911, was a pottery packer, making 25s. a week. He allowed 23s. There were six children born, and six alive.

November 7, 1910.

Left for Food, 10/6½

Average per head for food all round the family, 1s. 3¾d. a week, or 2¼d. a day.

Putting the father’s 3s. 6d. on one side, the mother and children average 1s. a week, or 1-5/7d. 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 22s. a week in summer-time, and what he could give her in winter; never less than 20s. when in work. The eldest girl had just got into a soda-water factory, and was allowing 4s. a week. Owing to a period of almost entire unemployment in the previous winter £3 4s. was still owing for rent when the visits began. There were seven children alive, three dead. One son had left home.

December 7, 1910.

Left for Food, 11/6.

Average per head for food all round the family, 1s. 3¾d. a week, or 2¼d. a day. Putting the father’s 3s. 6d. on one side, the mother and children average 1s. 1¾d. 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-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, continuously 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 1s. 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, 26s. Allowance, 23s. 6d. 6 children; none dead.

2. Wage, 25s. Allowance, 21s.; girl’s wage, 4s.; total, 25s. 7 children alive, 1 dead, 1 away.

3. Wage, 24s. Allowance, 22s. 3 children alive, 1 dead.

4. Wage, 24s. 9d. Allowance, 24s. 4 children alive, 1 dead.

5. Wage, 20s. Allowance, 19s. 4 children; none dead.

6. Wage, 20s. Allowance, 18s. 4 children alive; 5 dead.

Two cases where the weekly wage was less than 18s., owing to the men taking temporary work in unemployment:

7. Wage, 15s. Allowance, 12s. 6d. 2 children alive, 2 dead.

8. Wage, 10s. Allowance, 8s. 6d. 1 child.

The general average for the 8 women and 30 living children is 1s. 2⅗d. per head a week, or 2d. a day. Ten children have died, and 1 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 10¼d. a week, or 1½d. a day. Only 2 children have died in this group, making the total 20.

The average for the families of 2 horse-keepers is 1s. 4d. per week, or 2¼d. 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 1s. 1½d. 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 1s. 1½d. 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 1s. 3½d. a week, or 2¼d. a day.

The average for all the women and children within the investigation is 1s. 5½d. per head a week, or 2½d. per head a day.

This average is worked out under the supposition that the man has a uniform expenditure on his food of 3s. 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:

Mr. M.: Wage, 25s. Allowed 23s. Three children.

April 29, 1910.

Left for food, 13/0¼, which means 9/6¼ between the mother and children, or 2/4½ per week, or 4d. a day.

May 5, 1910.

Left for food, 8/3½, which means 4/9½ between the mother and children, or 1/2¼ 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, 25s.; allows 21s.; six children. Daughter (partially fed at service): Wage, 4s.; allows 4s. Total income, 29s. Total allowance, 25s.

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 11s. 3d. for the whole family of man, wife, and the five children fed at home, which means 1s. 7½d. per head a week all round the family. Taking the usual 3s. 6d. for the man’s food, there is left 7s. 9d. for the mother and children, which means 1s. 3½d. each per week, or 2¼d. per day. The 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:

While expenses other than food ran:

Which leaves for food all round the family, 12s. 2½d., or an average of nearly 1s. 9d. per head a week. The average for mother and children is almost 1s. 5½d., or 2½d. a day. The sum of 4s. 6d. which was received for the boots appears later as “4s. 8d. for boots out of pawn” in the expenditure of maternity benefit.

The sum of 3s. 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. The cases where men take 3s. or 3s. 3d. for week-day dinners are those in point. The sum of 4s. 6d. or 5s. 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 convinced 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 1s. 9d. 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 command, 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 overdraft with his banker in order to meet the crisis, 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 2½d. 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 10s. 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, 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 10s. 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 unsatisfactory is horribly true. But that the real cause of this state of things is the ignorance and indifference of their mothers is untrue. What person or body of people, however educated and expert, could maintain a working man in physical efficiency 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?

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 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 £1 a week. He gives the wife 18s. 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 investigation.

Mr. W., aged twenty, a toy-packer in City warehouse—wages 20s.; allows 18s. He has been married eighteen months, and when this budget was drawn up a baby was expected any day. His wages were raised from 18s. a year ago. His wife before marriage was a machinist on piece-work, and could earn 10s. 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 be provided for the evening meal; bread, butter, and tea would be the invariable breakfast.

Date of budget, January 16, 1913:

Left for food 9s. 9½d.

An average per head of 4s. 10¾d. 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 eventually have to be bought, though the parents will naturally put off that moment as long as possible. Should the wage rise gradually to 24s., or even 25s., 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 certainly expect better living. A “relish to his tea,” costing 2d. a day, mounts up to 1s. a week, and a “rasher to his breakfast” costs the same. So an increase of 2s. 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 £1 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).

This leaves for food, 9s. 3d. between three people, or an average of 3s. 1d. a head.

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, 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 bachelorhood, 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 baby is a source of great interest and pleasure 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 proportion as a rule, but it upsets the nice calculations which are based upon the supposition that a man earning 25s. 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, 1d. a day on tobacco, and 2d. a day on tram fares, and 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 himself, in some 5s. or 6s., and in some nothing. He varies as his brethren vary in other classes. Sometimes 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 independence, and that it would not hurt young men on £1 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 £1 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 20s. a week—and it is a sum which is soon spent without providing luxuries—would not, at thirty, when perhaps cold reason would direct his impulse, feel inclined to share his £1 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 contentedly on 20s. 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 20s. to 25s. 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 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 disappear on his daily round of work, which gradually 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 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 appetite 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 distance—that 6d. a day, or 3s. 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 23s. or 24s., he probably keeps an extra shilling for himself. Instead of allowing his wife 18s. a week, he allows her 20s. or 21s. If she has several children, the father’s weekly 3s. for dinner is far harder to compass than when she managed for two only on 18s. Rent, instead of being from 3s. 6d. to 5s. for one “good” upstairs room, amounts to from 6s. to 7s. for two upstairs rooms, or, if house-room be sacrificed to food, rent may be 5s. 6d. for two deadly basement rooms. Insurance has mounted from 3d. a week to 9d. a week. Gas which was 6d. is now 1s., on account of the extra cooking. Soap and other cleaning materials have increased in quantity, and therefore in expense from 2d. to 5½d. 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 unavoidable 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 sympathy 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 girl who is deficient in weight, in height, and in wits, often is the father’s special pet, for whom 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 improvidence 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 compulsion 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.