A PATHETIC STORY.

Evening Post, Volume XLVI, Issue 132, 2 December 1893, Page 2 (Supplement)

A PATHETIC STORY.

A pitiful story is told by a correspondent of a London paper. Last spring a working man, jivho had a wife and five children dependent upon him, became ill with small-pox. When he recovered, all his resources were exhausted. He had obtained a letter of recommendation for employment at a Government victualling yard. Owing to the danger of in. fection, the medical officer would not allow him to go inside the yard until August. The wife was in such a condition as to be debarred from work, and the whole family were homeless for about a month. At last they took refuge in the workhouse, and remained there from July 2nd to August 1, when the husband was to enter Government employment. His wife, though in a critical condition, begged him to apply for her release also. He borrowed a few shillings till the end of the week. But when Saturday came the unfortunate man found to his horror that it is a State regulation that the Government does not pay its employes at all until they have done a fortnight's work, and then only one week's wages — the Government owing every working, man a week's wages on his discharge. (This, it is asserted, is to protect the State from petty larceny.) The family were forced to leave their room and encamp on Blackheath. One night there was a drenching rain, and the mother, who protected her young children with her skirts, was soaked to the skin. Five nights were spent in the open air, and when at last the husband managed to engage a room it was too late. - His wife was taken ill immediately, and she and her newborn babe died.

One of the combatants in a recent duel at Berlin with swords between two students of the University of Bonn has <ljed from the ;tteota of a severe wound he received in the lead.