Mr. Dudley Baxter writes an excellent letter to the Times
about the distress of "East London," the irregular square, containing 4,480 acres, on which stand Clerkenwell, Shoreditch, Bethnal Green, Whitechapel, St. George's, Mile End Old Town, and Poplar, with a population of 630,000, just six Leedses. The whole of this population is more or less distressed, but the hardest case is that of the families, numbering 70,000 souls, dependent upon ship and engine building. They have no work, their savings are exhausted, and the Guardians can only allow them from is. to is. 10d. per week per house, with a quartern loaf for every inmate. This does not pay the rent, and as one day's work in the week stops this allowance, it tends to check the search for work. Even this relief is not given from house to house, but can only be obtained by standing hours among crowds made brutal by misery and privation. The people are too poor to go afield for employ- ment, too poor to emigrate, too poor to do anything but die, often without applying to the parish, which, as they say, brings them down. We suppose Lord Shaftesbury would consider it an impiety to read the Spectator, but we wish somebody who does would ask - him this question. Could not something be done by loans to these poor people, moderate loans, say a shilling a day per house, to be repaid when work came back ? They would pay, and 500/. a day, 45,000/. for the winter, would keep 10,000 houses from want.
Previous page
