Mr. L., builder’s handyman. Wage 23s. Allows 19s. to 20s. Six children alive.

July 10, 1912, allowed 19s. 6d.

Left for food 10s. 1½d.

July 17, allowed 19s. 6d.

Left for food 10s. 3½d.

July 24, allowed 19s.

Left for food 9s. 9½d.

This family squeezes six children into two rooms, thereby saving from 1s. 6d. to 2s. a week, and makes no regular provision for clothing. Clothes are partly paid for by extra money earned by Mr. L. in summer, when work is good.

Mr. S., scene-shifter. Wage 24s. Allows 22s. Six children alive.

October 12, 1911, allowed 22s.

Left for food 10s.

October 19, allowed 22s.

Left for food 10s. 0½d.

October 26, allowed 22s.

Left for food 9s. 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 forthcoming. 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 1s. 6d. less a week for them, and they are wretchedly inferior. Her burial insurance is extremely high. Her record shows that she thought herself wise to make the sum so liberal. Even then she had to borrow 10s. to help to pay the 30s. for the funeral of her last child, because the burial insurance money only amounted to £1.

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. 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 convenience. 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 unscientific, 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 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 without 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 recovered she made no sign. Before marriage she had been a domestic servant in a West-End club, receiving 14s. 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 1s. 9d. 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 everythink 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 exception 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. 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 something 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 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 themselves 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 20s. 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 bargained 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 certainly worse in original quality as well as less fresh and less clean in condition. Potatoes are generally 2 lbs. for 1d., 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 legal weight. In other words, when he is paid for a quartern he must sell a quartern. He therefore weighs two “half-quartern” 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 moment south of Kennington Park may be 5d., while up in Lambeth proper it may be 5½d. In Kensington at the same moment delivered bread is perhaps being sold at 6d. a quartern. The difference in price, therefore, at a given moment might amount to as much as 7d. 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 4s. 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 managed 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.

In Lambeth, the amounts spent on bread and meat respectively by the wives of four men in regular work are given below:

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:

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 housewife 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 4½d., 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 expenditure 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 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 20s. budget. They may cost 1s. 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,” 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 9s. a week. Even a pint a day means 1s. 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 1d., 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 persons would take two tins at 3½d. 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 enormously 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 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 23s. wage allows her 20s., 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 4s. 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 9d. to 3s. 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 milk for the needs of the baby she is nursing. Moreover, the price is, in the case of the 20s. 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 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 “relishes,” 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 anything 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 housekeeper is to make her great purchase on Saturday evening when she gets her allowance. She probably buys the soap, wood, oil, tea, sugar, margarine, 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 potatoes and pot herbs, as well as fish, often come round on barrows, and are usually bought as required. When she has put aside the rent, the insurance, 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 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 Sunday 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 advantage. 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 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 a long 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 terrified ’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 4s. 6d., another 3s. 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.

The daily purchases of the wife of a dustsorter are given below. The husband was paid 3s. 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 Westminster, 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 5s. for rent and 1s. 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 housekeeper would have been well off indeed, as Lambeth goes, could she have laid out her money to better advantage. She never had more than 3s. 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 anæmia, 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 18s. 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, 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 lbs. of sugar, and 3 tins of milk. The baby was very young and the mother anæmic, and the 8d. for a girl to take it out is money usefully spent. Otherwise the infant would hardly ever have left the room, as her mother does the 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 advanced rental of 2s., of which the father and mother each pay half. So the weekly list of purchases has now to be made out of 17s. The baby is six months old instead of five weeks, and the mother’s milk has completely failed her. Thus the expenses increase, while the housekeeping 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 brushing them away. On the advice of the visitor the sick child was carried off there and then to the 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 rudimentary. To boil a neck with pot herbs on Sunday, and make a stew of “pieces” on Wednesday, 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 cannot 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 equipment with which it is easy to manage the delicacies 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 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 19s. and 23s. 6d., according to hours worked. In a Bank Holiday week they went down to 15s. He usually keeps 1s. a week, and has his dinners at home. There are four children, all under five. The rent is 4s. 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, 1 oz. butter, ½ oz. tea, a farthing’s-worth of tinned milk, a halfpennyworth 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.

Tuesday.—Breakfast: One loaf, 1 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, 1 oz. butter, tea. Corned beef for Mr. X. Dinner: Boiled bacon, beans, and potatoes. Tea: One loaf, 1 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, 1 oz. butter, and tea.

Friday.—Breakfast: One loaf, 1 oz. butter, and tea. Dinner: Sausages and potatoes. Tea: One loaf, jam, and tea.

Saturday.—Breakfast: One loaf, 1 oz. butter, two pennyworth of cocoa. Dinner: Pudding of “pieces,” greens, and potatoes. Tea: One loaf, 1 oz. butter, and tea. Fish and fried potatoes for Mr. X.

These children look fairly well and seem vigorous. 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 25s. a week. He allows as a rule 22s. 6d. to his wife, out of which she gives him back 3s. a week for his dinners when at work. There are six children under thirteen. The rent for two rooms upstairs is 6s. 6d., and burial insurance is 1s.

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.

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: ¾ lb. sausages and potatoes. Tea: Bread, jam, and tea.

One of Mrs. T.’s weekly budgets is here given:

It will be noticed in this menu that Mr. T. gets no relish for either tea or breakfast throughout 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 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 excellent 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 3s. 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 3s. 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 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 1 lb. pieces (4½d.), 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 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 3s. Occasionally it was 2s., and sometimes it was only 1s. 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 anæmic, 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 satisfactory until the eldest boy started “wastin’”—a process Lambeth children are given to embarking 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 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 30s. 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, 4½ teaspoonfuls of tinned milk, small spoonful of sugar each. Dinner: 3½ lbs. meat (1s. 9d.), greens, and potatoes; very occasionally a suet pudding. Tea: Tea, bread, margarine, and watercress (½d.).

Monday.—Breakfast: Tea, bread, and margarine; 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 margarine; haddock for him. Dinner: Baked breast of mutton (7½d.), greens, and potatoes.

Wednesday.—Breakfast: Tea, bread, and margarine; rasher for him. Dinner: Stew of “pieces,” pot herbs, and potatoes.

Thursday.—Breakfast: Tea, bread, and margarine; fish for him (2d.). Dinner: 1 lb. sausages (5d.) and potatoes; ½ lb. “skirt” of beef for him.

Friday.—Breakfast: Tea, bread, and margarine; rasher for him (2d.). Dinner: Fried strips of breast of mutton (4½d.) and potatoes; two chops for him (5d.).

Saturday.—Breakfast: Tea, bread, and margarine; fish for him (2d.). Dinner: 1 lb. pork chops (9½d.), 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 visitations 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 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 25s., out of which he allows 20s. to his wife, and keeps 5s. 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 5s. a week for his own clothing and pocket-money, Mr. Q. has 6½d. a day allowed him by his wife for his dinners on six days a week when he is at work. Moreover, he demands 1s. 1d. 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 lbs. of sugar, which also have to 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 ½ lb. “pieces” (2¼d.) and potatoes.

Thursday.—Meat pudding from other ½ lb. of “pieces” (2¼d.) and potatoes.

Friday.—Liver (3d.), one rasher (1½d.), and potatoes.

Saturday.—Two herrings (3d.).

Mr. Q.’s Expenses.

General Food shared by Mr. Q.

General Expenses.

Food not shared by Mr. Q.—Week-day Dinners of Mrs. Q. and Children.

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 accompanied by an egg, does not seem a very satisfactory or over-luxurious breakfast for a working man. His daily dinner at 6½d. 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 5s. 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 25s. a week, and he allows his wife 21s. Out of the 4s. kept by him, the usual 4d. goes in National Health Insurance, 6d. in a sick club, 1d. to the hospital, 1d. 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 4s. a week, and brings it home regularly to her mother. Thus the housekeeping allowance is 25s. 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 4s. 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 (10d.), 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 (1 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 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 £1 a week before she married. No burial insurance is paid in this family.