STARVING IN SECRET

Evening Star, Issue 19841, 14 April 1928, Page 19

STARVING IN SECRET

SI LENT SUFFERING OF LONELY WOMEN Life’s-bitterest tragedies are those which lie hidden from the world. They get no columns in the newspapers, nor have they anything to do with sensational crime or unhappy love. They are merely the struggles of life’s failures who light ad endure in silence. Every now and then, like the case of the two starving women at Camberwell, some stark drama about ordinary decent folk comes to light, and the world'wonders at the depth of misery and hopelessness that lies beneath the surface.

These two pathetic women (writes Mrs Cecil Chesterton, in the 1 Sunday Chronicle ’) earned not more than 22s a week between them, and bore their poverty in silence. When one fractured Jier l e S s he made a gallant attempt to get to her work, “ as it was her living.” Rut her constitution had been weakened by privation and she died, leaving her sister to carry on the burden of poverty alone. TOO PROUD TO SPEAK. This other sister told the coroner at the inquest that they paid Ss 3d a week rent, and had to pay fares to the city and back, as well as health insurance. Twenty-two shillings a week for two people to live on! Had it not been lor the tragic death of one of the women they would still have been carrying on their gallant fight in silence, seeking no one’s help, but holding their heads high in their decent reticence to expose their hopeless plight. Theirs is which has come to light by accident. There are thousands more of these pathetic, lonely women fighting the same heroic battle—actors in grim dramas the world will never hear about. I am continually coming across them, living in tiny attics and existing mostly on frugal meals of bread, margarine, and tea. But their neighbors know nothing of their real lives or their desperate straits. Whatever the ache in their hearts they cling to the tatters of their gentility with an intensity amounting almost to a passion.

Day after day they emerge irom their garrets, their poor, shabby clothes meticulously brushed, their heads held high. The city gulps them up, gives them the few shillings per week for addressing envelopes or sewing that just enables them to keep a roof over their , heads. STRANDED IN OLD AGE.

They have no amusements —they can’t afford them. Night after night they go back to their cheerless homes to endure another evening of loneliness. Niue times out of ten it is the same story behind it all. I get it told to mo in letters which reach mo every day asking cun I And them jobs. Their tragedy is that of the mediocre woman worker whoso capacity never carried her beyond the minimum wage, and who, when her youth vanished, finds herself thrust out on the scrap heap of failures. Among them, too, are women who have devoted the best part of their lives to nursing a sick mother or looking after small brothers and sisters, and who. when the ianiily has broken up, find themselves stranded without a home or prolession. I had a letter only the other day from a.woman who did quite valuable work during the war in one of the Ministries. Since then she bad had one or two jobs which kept her going. But through ill-health she lost both her work and her home, and is now selling matches near Victoria Station. She wanted to know if thctc was any chance of.my finding her some sort of position. But who is going to employ a woman of over sixty?

LOOKING FOR WORK AT SIXTY. Another woman who has joined the ranks of these hopeless lighters against fate is a widow ol sixty-five, who formerly ran a boarding house which just enabled her to keep herself and give her two sons decent educations. 111heaßii forced her to give up the business, and all she gets now is about 7s a wek to pay rent ami live. If this woman could find a place which she could rent for a nominal sum she might struggle along. But her rent' swallows up practically ail lici slender allowance. Yet another case I have, recent y come across is that ol a lilty-yenr-old typist. For months she has been trudging round city' offices and ansveiing advertisements. But always when she presents herself tor an interview there is the same reply. Nobody is going to employ a typist of filty when there are so many smart young girls on the market.

There are thousands of women like these. And every one is a tragedy. How they live is a miracle. Yet somehow or other they- struggle on, hiding their misery away in some obscure garret and presenting a brave front to the world. WORSE OFF THAN MEN.

They are not as a rule the “ surplus ” women* who might have married if there had been enough men to go round. The majority would have remained “surplus” in any condition of society. It is just that they arc too mediocre, too “ average.” For women who have fallen into tins abyss of misery and hopelessness it is a much harder fight than it would be for a man. A man will fight through sheer instinct, while a woman must have something to cling on to and fight Once they have been compelled through economic reasons to give up their homes is when the awful tragedy occurs. It is so very difficult for them to tight back. What is to be done for these women ? The more elderly among them can never hope to find jobs. Nothing but a hopeless future stretches ahead. So far as I can see the only way they can be helped lies in the provision of decent dwellings which could he leu to them at a nominal rent. If blocks of flats could be constructed where they could obtain a nice clean room at next to nothing it would go a long way towards solving the problem. Here is a chance for a philanthropist to remove one of the greatest social scandals of to-day and make thousands of poor women happy. ROOT OF THE PROBLEM.

This housing difficulty is certainly at the root of the Iroblem. I knew one block of tenements in Kensington where small flats were obtainable before the war at a rent of 6s per week; to-day the rents have soared to £l5O a year. What hope has a woman earning a pound or so a week of getting decent accommodation under such circumstances? There is a general impression that sweating has been abolished, or that it only exists in isolated instances. But, unfortunately, such is not the case. There are hundreds of women in London alone who are working their fingers to the bone for a paltry 7s or 8s per week. The strange thing is that they bear no passionate resentment against their lot. You seldom hear them complain. These poor things are almost invariably fastidiously honest. I don’t suppose they even owe a penny for milk or bread, for no matter how poor they may happen to be some sort of ideal of gentility seems to survive. ’ It will be asked why women who have fallen upon such evil circumstances don’t seek relief in the proper quarter. But these women who fight fate in silence would sooner die first.