ENGLISH WORKING CLASSES.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 89, 17 April 1911, Page 8

ENGLISH WORKING CLASSES.

LIFE ON £1 A WEEK. INTERVIEW WITH MRS. PEMBER REEVES. fFBOM OUS OWN COEBESFONDENT.] LONDON, 10th March. During the past two years Mrs. W. Pember Reeves, for the Fabian Society Executive Committee, liae been conducting an enquiry into the domestic life Ovf the working classes. While engaged in this task sne collected a great deal of valuable^ information, which Mr. St. John G. Ervine has narrated in 1 the form of an interview in the Daily Mail. Mrs. Reeves explains that the people she dealt with were all of the decent working class, and her general conclu©ion is : "Tha.t there is a quite incalculable amount of distress among these people, and a really serious precets of physical deterioration going on among them. The men, for the most part, are decent, industrious people, and the | women are economical managers. They 1 have powers of resource, a-nd ths things they ( dt> with their money were most unexpected by mo when I began this investigation." THRIFT* WORKING CLASSES. Mrs. Reevca found no signs of extra vagance or thriftlessness among this class. _ Describing the method of her investigation, the interviewer writes : "Each mother kept t. 'budget' for a period of at least one yeao* showing exactly how much money there was to be spent and the manner in which it was spent. This is taken down weekly bj Mrs. Reeves. For the purposes of estimating the food allowance per head she took any six consecutive weeks when the man, was in ful l work. She showed me the ' budgets ' of several families, and the following is a typical one. The husband in this case earns 25s per week, of which sum he hands 23s to his wife. For Mrs. Reeves's purpose the family is treated as seven persons, the baby being disregarded. In considering what follows, however, the baby's existence should not be overlooked, since fresh milk for it would cost 2s 4d a week. P.ent, light, heat, clothing, cleaning. Food allowance insurance. Food. per head. lla Zd 11s lOd isS-id Ils6;kl 11s s?d Is7?d lls 9id 13s 2£d Is7|d lls 73d lls4Jd Is7*d 12s lOAd 10s l.Yd Is s£d 12s 8£d 10s 3|d Issid Average per head, during six weeks,' for food, Is 7d. FOOD EXPENDITURE. "You confirm Mr. Rowntree'e statement, in his famous book, that any •extra expenditure is taken out of the amount allowed for food?" " 'OH, yes ! Here, for example, is a case of an exceptionally able woman in a family of five persons. By the way, these poor people are discovering that it does not pay to have large families. I have been struck by the fact that women with seven children envy the women with fewer. The woman I was going to tell you about is able to spend an amount of 3s o^d per head per week on food. Her husband earns 265, and her allowance is 235. When her baby was born a nurse was employed, to whom was paid 6s. That sum was taken out of the food allowance, and its effect was to knock down the average spent on food per head from 3s o^d to 2s Id. As a matter of fact, in any weekly allowance of 23s about lls 5d is spent on, food. If there are seven to feed, there is less a head than if there are fewer. Four people can eat lls 5d in a week without hurting themselves. If there j happen to bo seven people, so much tho | -worse for the people. " , * I asked Mrs. Reeves whether her experience confirmed Mr. Rowntree's statement that the best-fed member of the family is the father. " 'Of course he is,' she replied, 'and j fov a very sound reason. The women ' say that his strength must be kept up, otherwise he will «>t be able to work at all. When stinting has to be done, ' it is tho wife and children who do it. I am astonished at the patience and perseverance cf these women, aiid the real decency and self-suppression of their husbands. They are surprisingly good to one another, but their vitality is starved and cramped, and their intelligence- is dulled by cheer want of proper food from tho time they aro born. Remember, these are not the slum ! people ; they are the ordinary, respect- | able, lower working class. It is a, very large clacs, and its persistent detsriora- ! tion must have a serious effect on the health of tho nation !' "

While rabbit-shooting, at South Karcri yesterday a married man named William i Al'Carley received a ihot in the back I from a, pea riflo. He was conveyed to I tho Hospital, where his condition is ro- | garded as serious. ; Mr. John Hays Hammond, who, it is [ officially announced, is to be special Ambassador for the United States at tho Coronation, has the enviable reputation of drawing the largest salary in iho world. As chief consulting engineer of tlio Guggenheim Company he yetts tlib colossal yearly remuneration of £200,000. When ho was quite a boy, Mr. Hammond used to mix with the gold miners of America, and at the age of ten he used to delight in going about himself trying to find "nuggets."' Indeed, he showed so much aptitude for mineralogy th;>t his father allowed him to go to the Royal School of Minos at Freiberg, in Germany. Later on, Mr. Hammond went to South Africa, where he was intimately connected with tho iate Cecil Rhodes and the late Barney Barnato. Tho claimants to the wealth of Admiral Witz. who died at Amsterdam leaving a fortune of £4,500,000, are so numerous that they have formed themselves into v company, and a meeting of over 400 of the German and other foreign members of tins syndicate has been held at Cologne. The legal documents in the Imperial archives a-t Vienna are to be brought to Cologne for examination by legal experts.

The yachts which are competing in the ocean race from Port Underwood to Wellington«-Ngaira, Kotiri, and Rona — arrived in. the harbour ac The Poet went to prees this afternoon. According to the figures compiled by the Registrar-General of Shipping and Seamen, 29 steamers, aggregating 52,171 tons gross, and 7 sailing_ ships, of 385 tons net, or a total of 66 vessels, of 52,556 teus, were added to the register of the United Kingdom in January, against 47 vessels, of 69,003 tons, m January last year, 42 vessels, of 55,309 tons, in January, 1909, 69 vessels, •of 77,756 tons, in January, 1908, and 67 vessels, of 88,387 tons, in January, 1907. The registers were closed of 42 steamers, of 43,279 tons gross, and 49 sailing-ships, of 13.456 tons, or a total of 91 vessels, of 56,825 tons, showing a net decrease of 55 vessels, and a decrease of 4269 tons, as compared with a net increase, of 4377 tons in January last year, 349 -tons in January, 1909, 49,687 tons in January, 1908, and 37,239 tons in January, 1907. m Mr._ W. L. Robertson will sell by auction, in his rooms, Manners-atreet, to-mor-row, the contents of a six-roomed house. On Tuesday, 25th April, Messrs. George Thomas and Co. will sell 1740 forfeited shares in tho King Gold Mining Co., Ltd.