HOW THE POOR LIVE.
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—Here are three examples of the way the poor live now. They may interest your readers. 1. In a house with one room downstairs and two rooms up live a most respectable family. In the smaller bedroom (and it is very small) sleep the father and mother, in the larger sleep the four daughters, aged 20, 14, 6 and 8, and the two boys, aged 16 and 11. 2. A labourer, his wife and family live in a two-roomed house, one room down, one up. The man is out of work and has been for months. The total income is 26s. a week, out of which 5s. goes for rent, leaving 21s. to provide for two adults and six children. The upstairs furniture consists of two beds, two sheets, two blankets and a quilt. The children—all girls—are aged 12, 9, 8, 6 and 2 and a baby aged six weeks. The children sleep in one bed, three at the head and two at the foot. 3. A labourer—temporarily employed by a County Council— forms one of a gang of men working with a steam roller at road repairs. His gang has never worked near his home, and in consequence he gets up at 3 a.m., leaves home at 4 a.m., walks on an average about eleven miles to work, wheels stones from 7 a.m. till 5 p.m., when he walks eleven miles back home. He has no money to buy a bicycle, and is afraid of losing his job if he asks to change into another gang.
STIPENDIARY MAGISTRATE.
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