POVERTY IN FRANCE.

New Zealand Herald, 29 June 1914, Page 11

POVERTY IN FRANCE.

lives OF the WORKERS. DO LONDONERS FARE WORSE ? WHAT A FRENCH WRITER SAYS. frROM 01' OWN CORRESPONDENT.]

f s London", May 15. I fxuzs are many in New Zealand, doubtf lest, »ii • have read with interest "Round | a Pound a Week," the book which I l " { ' outcome of Mrs. W. Pember I g.eeve.< f investigations among the better- [ oS w ork.fi;:-class families in South LonI cur, ihnr conditions of life. This I bi.jt : a.- veil inspiration to Madame \ Muriel * K'ikowska to deal briefly with | cone.'- ill Paris among people similarly I pja.t-o Pie social scale. What she says 1 „ . ip .„i.d in the current issue of The jj The t-:wxh writer characterises Mrs. | s h -;i< «> a "distressing narra- | l;'•' ■ M '' g ut>s ou t'> say : "Though I tht-'• ..- <!•'> amount of poverty and squalor 5 ir hr.vi . >-. iis not due to exactly the same [ i,s •" England, ami does not express I jiff.: -u-li unutterable wretchedness, : p.u:v, hi Paris never seems so perj jLftDci/.iv. irremediably hopeless as in j UjUd.:,.' j ' Fir be ,! (rum me to suggest that the i po,r lie:,' invi,man's life is all heaven [ ccmpjurd with the Englishwoman's purga- [ tor;. ■ 1 should be tile less justified in i doiug fi"- considering that in France druLtci,;.tss is constantly on the increase ' gud mat bad husbands follow in propor- | tion Nevertheless, 1 think it would be impossible to draw such a picture of uni- ! versa! misery as that given by .Mrs. PernI fcer Ree\es without much exaggeration tfiwutre ir, Paris. Limitation ol Families. | '• In France five children count as a very Urge family indeed," proceeds Madame ('lolkowska. "The accommodation of large families having become an impossibility, families have to be cut dcwc. No workman's wife in France is not also a bread-earning woman. Often, rather than remain, as she would consider. .die. she ill undertake some employment—in domestic service or as a concierge—almost, if not entirely even, precluding cluldren. Her first consideration is to earn enough money to live, her tt<ond whether she can afford children and whether she has room to accommodate them. " Von see at once how tho order of tkngs is completely reversed as compared citb England, where God sends the little foidren and man must do what he can to provide for them. Thus, that poor woman of 58 with eight children under 15, or the one with four children all under . Sv'e. mentioned by Mrs. Pember Reeves, would be phenomenal in the respectable French working class. In England they arc the rule, apparently. *•• "When a fourth chile* is born and the eldest is net a wage-earner, the State i, comes to the parents' assistance with a > .subvention. This measure is supposed to encourage large families, and so it does, f rather than assist the poor and deserving, i - lor a numerous family may take undue % sdv&Dtage of this privilege, while a > smaller and poorer family has no claim to it.' 1

Ho Stinting in Good Food. Whatever a French working family's earnings, we learn from the same writer, tie greater part is spent on food, for a Frenchman will stint himself anywhere rather than in his meals. No French fanalv. unless they be tramps or ragpickers, but sits down to a meal at table and eats decently and slowly with knife, {ark and serviette. There are many workmen in' Paris who live exceedingly Well, and a great deal better than many middle-class families in England or even fiance. with roast chicken on Sundays it-d good nourishing stews on week-days. In the country, a thick soup, repeated {tree times a day, Bade with cabbage, potatoes, sometimes a bit of beef or bacon, and stiff with bread, is the mam fare. Pkia it is, but how much preferable to the tea and margarine of Lambeth - indeed, no one knows anything about timed milk or margarine. Coffee is always forthcoming"; and there are few people who do not drink wine at each of the two eaif, and in the case of men between limes Meat, vegetables, cheese, salad, plenty of bread, are the daily rations of rrench workmen and women, and they ceil be poor indeed to eat ess and not to vary their fare by occasional Bait herrings, cod" sardines, sausage, etc.

Cleanliness of Pool Women. Acvone who has travelled about France will Lave do hesitation in agreeing with the writer of the article when she says that the Frenchwoman of the poorer class manages to look incomparably neater than an Englishwoman of the same class. "To ope who has lived abroad a long while, tie right, on returning to England, of the poor woman you see in the streets of London, their dirty skirts dragging is the mud. with filthy, torn once-white tprok, and their grotesque bwfl-gear, is, she esve. " too painful for words- Many of them do not seem human. "The Frenchwoman goes out bareheaded . her hair carefully dressed and her sk.rt covered by a large blue apron or sinai; fancy one. She protects her shoulders with a shawl, or wears a plain woollen jacket of a uniform type. Sfao is trimly corseted and proper! v shod. On certain occasions she will don wooden clog* Her face and hands are clean, for though the French do not talk so much about tubs and baths as do the English, the working das." womar gives great attention to the hygiene of her body. Frenchwomen's earnings, however small, added to the husband's, improve the circumstances of the family as compared with those households in Lambeth with bat one bread" ji ner and half-a-dozen or mare children.